Breaking It Down: Erik Jones comes oh, so close at Talladega

The Petty GMS Motorsports driver has his second-best finish since joining the No. 43 team last season, and almost pulled off a surprise win. Here's what happened:

On Sunday afternoon, Erik Jones was just a half-straightaway short of getting NASCAR legend Richard Petty back to victory lane in the Geico 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.

After leading the field off of Turn 4, Jones attempted to fend off a hard-charging Kyle Larson on his outside, only to get passed by a pack of drivers on the inside lane. Within just a few hundred yards, Jones went from eyeing the illustrious No. 43 car’s 200th Cup series win to settling for bittersweet 6th-place finish instead.

"I mean, just the last lap, right?" Jones said afterward. "It's typical here. Been close here so many times, in this race and the fall race."

Jones had one of the best cars all day, leading 25 laps and constantly running in or around the top 5 for the majority of the race. However, after taking the lead with three laps to go, Jones found himself in the precarious position of leading a superspeedway race with a swarm of drivers behind him plotting to make a last-lap pass.

In the middle of Turn 4, Jones put some considerable distance between himself and second-place Kyle Larson, which left Jones extremely vulnerable to a big run from the cars behind him. As they ran down Talladega’s notoriously long front straightaway, Jones was a sitting duck to Larson and the rest of the field.

In an act of desperation, Jones veered up a lane to try and neutralize the big run that Larson had built up. But to everyone’s surprise, Larson’s move knocked Kurt Busch up the track and set off a chain reaction crash that took out Busch’s 23XI teammate Bubba Wallace in the process.

Meanwhile, eventual winner Ross Chastain snuck his way past Jones and Larson unscathed as he rode the bottom lane to victory while the chaos ensued behind him.

“I should’ve just faked going high and then went back low,” Jones said. “We had a shot. Just didn’t quite close it out.”

Giving up the bottom lane certainly played a part in Jones’ falling short on Sunday afternoon. However, there is no telling if he could have done anything on the frontstretch to prevent getting passed.

Drivers are notorious for their perfect hindsight after coming up short in a thrilling superspeedway finish and it's always hard to tell what the winning decision truly would have been.

In reality, Jones lost the race as soon as he allowed himself to get so far out in front of the field in the final corners. Without anyone to push him, Jones was forced to play defense as he raced to the checkers, which left him outnumbered against the slew of cars that had built up a run on him.

“We’ve been close here so many times,” Jones said. “That last lap we were single file and I felt pretty good about it. Looking back, I wish I had stayed on the bottom and let the 1 (of Ross Chastain) push me.

"I was just trying to win the race. Happy to run upfront and lead laps, but really would love to get the 43 in victory lane. I thought today might be the day.”

For Jones and the No. 43 Petty GMS team, “the day” Jones is referring to is long overdue, especially for such a storied organization and owner. The No. 43 car’s last win came in the summer of 2014 when Aric Almirola took a rain-shortened victory at Daytona.

And Jones' second and most recent Cup career win came at Darlington in 2019, when he was still with Joe Gibbs Racing. 

Since losing his seat in the No. 20 car at JGR, Jones has had his fair share of challenges since moving to the Petty GMS No. 43 entry. Although Jones has shown flashes of brilliance during his time with Petty GMS, strong performances like Sunday’s have been few and far between as he works through his second year with the team.

The team has struggled to find consistency despite showing respectable speed throughout the year thus far. Sunday’s finish is its third top 10 this season, but with superspeedways being one of Jones’ strong suits, the coming weeks will determine whether today’s race was a momentum builder or merely a one-off occasion.

Jones now sits 17th in the standings, just outside of the playoff cutline. If Jones and the team can string together some more runs like Sunday's, we may see NASCAR’s most iconic number make it to the playoffs for the first time since 2014.

While Jones may not have made it to victory lane at Talladega this time, he certainly made a statement.

The series now heads to Dover, where Jones and the rest of the field will try to conquer the high banks of the Monster Mile.