. Erik Jones gave the No. 43 car a landmark 200th victory — along with maybe a few regrets to his old employers at Joe Gibbs Racing.
Jones moved in front when JGR star Kyle Busch blew an engine, then outraced another former Gibbs colleague in Denny Hamlin over the final 31 laps to win the Southern 500 on Sunday night. It’s the first time a non-playoff driver won the opener of the 10-race postseason.
Jones won this event in 2019 for the Gibbs organization, where he raced Cup cars from 2017 to 2020. He came out on top once more, this time for Petty GMS Motorsports owned in part by Richard Petty.
“I never lost any belief in myself through any of it,” Jones said. “I knew I could still do it and I knew we needed to grow the program to do it. And we have.”
The celebration continued for the Petty organization, which had not won since Aric Almirola‘s Daytona 500 victory in 2014.
“I know my dad,” Kyle Petty said. “What time is it, 11 [p.m.]? He just opened a bottle of red wine.”
The King went to Twitter shortly after Jones took the checkered flag to congratulate Erik Jones and his team.
Jones just wanted the Hall of Famer to keep his promise.
“He said I’d get a hat if I win,” Jones said, laughing.
Hamlin, seeded sixth in the playoffs, closed in on Jones’ back bumper on the final lap, but couldn’t make the winning pass.
“Erik just did a really great job,” Hamlin said. “Great day for Erik, a great day for our team.”
The third of Jones’ old JGR teammates, Martin Truex Jr. held a substantial lead over Busch when his No. 19 had power steering problems and went off to the garage