Brandon Jones is always confident coming into Martinsville, and it paid off Friday with a pole award for the NASCAR Xfinity Series.
“This is my second pole here at Martinsville, so every time I’m here I look to be the contender to sit on the pole and try to win this race,” Jones said.
Despite this, the JR Motorsports driver hasn’t always been a fan of Martinsville. He explained that spending time focusing on the mile-and-a-half tracks caused his short track skills to suffer, and he had to put the hours into relearning those skills.
“I think that I’ve put a lot of time into trying to figure out this racetrack,” Jones explained. “I had to go back a little bit and figure out, you know, okay, what am I missing here? And now, ever since 2022, I really picked up on a lot of different things that’s helped me turn this program around to be good here.
“And you know, now at this point we’re, we’re a threat to win the race every time we come,” he said with a smile.
With all that work behind him, Jones can come into Martinsville with a swagger.
“I mean, I come in here thinking this is my house now,” he said. “I definitely come in here thinking that this is, this is my place now, you know?”
Jones will have his work cut out for him to defend his house on Saturday, though. His car suffered a crack in its left-front brake rotor in practice, which will have to be changed. As an unapproved adjustment, that will send him to the rear of the field, and Cole Custer will lead the field to the green flag.
Jones anticipates some aggression being required to fight his way through the field. Chandler Smith will also be back there after being sent to the rear as well.
“Yeah, for sure,” he said. Those are great short track racers that are gonna be back there. They’re, they’re gonna be really aggressive. They got all the same mindset of wanting to try to get up through there and not get lapped as well. So I don’t, I don’t expect it to be too big of a concern there. Like you said, we got good enough guys back there to follow through.”
Brandon Jones certainly has the confidence and the speed to win at Martinsville, but it will be anything but a cakewalk if he’s going to do it.
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