WINCHESTER, IN – Kyle Busch Motorsports had by far the two most dominant cars in the field, but it was the least likely of the two late model juggernauts that secured victory Sunday afternoon when Erik Jones waved the checkered flag for his third consecutive Winchester 400 win.
Jones, the Joe Gibbs Racing prospect who also secured $100,000 in prize money by winning the JEGS late model Triple Crown, battled his teammates Christopher Bell throughout the race before Bell struck the wall in turn four with roughly 50 laps left in the race.
“I was way on the bottom, and he was running really, really high,” Jones explained of the critical moment in the race. “I figured at some point he’d probably get in the wall. At that point you’re giving it all you’ve got but he got a little too much and slipped. It’s probably a little bit of inexperience on his part, he’s new to the asphalt world and the late model world and this race and this track.
I never want to see anybody wreck, but I definitely breathed a sigh of relief when he hit the wall.”
Bell, another top Toyota prospect, ran away with the Labor Day Super Series race at Winchester Speedway, and led a majority of the race early before his mistake pushed him back to 14th place, 49 laps down. Bell was not available for comment.
Although Jones mentioned he could breathe a sigh of relief during the final run of the race, the victory was far from a walk in the park for the 19-year-old prodigy. Starting 16th and with minimal practice due to running the Xfinity Series at Charlotte Friday night, Jones was also racing with a burnt right foot that left him in too much pain to even remove his shoe.
“We set up a new leg brace and it just didn’t have a shield next to the foot box,” Jones explained. “It got pretty hot at a couple of points. About lap 40 I probably knew it was going to be an issue. Probably tore up my foot pretty good, but it was worth it for sure.”
Toyota driver Cody Coughlin finished second after qualifying fifth and ran near the front of the pack the whole race, surviving the war of attrition that saw just six cars finish all 400 laps, but disappointed that he couldn’t catch Jones during the final dash.
“It feels really terrible,” Coughlin said after the race. “We were catching them there at the end and lost our momentum. Just didn’t have it.”
Chase Elliott was the top Chevrolet in third place, getting a lap back and working his way back near the front, while CRA Super Series champion Grant Quinlan and Southern Super Series regular Bubba Pollard rounded out the top five.
Pollard, who had a tire go down with less than 100 laps remaining, regained his track position to quietly post a top five, believing he could have had a chance to win despite KBM and Toyota’s dominance throughout the weekend.
“We race them like we race anybody else, we can go out and beat them,” Pollard said after the race. “They’re just like we are. We’ve just got to keep working and keep digging.”
A race that saw an incredible amounts of wrecks and attrition, even by the Winchester 400’s endurance standards, Jones said he appreciated this victory the most of his three because of the adversity which stood between him and victory lane.
“I didn’t know after qualifying what kind of shot we had running 16th,” Jones said. “Probably the hardest we’ve had to work for a 400. A really good day overall and it’s just nice to be here and get another 400 win, and to get that bonus to cap it all off.”
