Erik Jones stays with Legacy Motor Club
By the end of this new contract, the solid and consistent Jones will have spent at least six seasons with LMC — at his own peril.
NEWS: He's back driving the iconic No. 43! @LEGACYMotorClub announces a multiyear contract extension with @Erik_Jones. pic.twitter.com/0S3NxiWEZ2
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) August 13, 2024
Erik Jones has signed a multi-year extension with Legacy Motor Club. Jones, who joined LMC from Joe Gibbs Racing in 2021, has one of his three career wins with the team in the 43 car (2022 Darlington's Southern 500).
For his career, Jones has been a neutral-to-slightly-positive driver. His success rate on all tracks has bottomed out at 50% (2020, 2021, 2023) and peaked at 64% (2022). His positions finished above expected (PFAE) hovers around 1, peaking at 3.4 in 2022, and, before this season, his low was slightly above 0. So far this season, his PFAE is -0.13 with a 55% success rate (suggesting his bad results are really bad). On non-drafting ovals (NDOs), his stats are about the same, but with a bit more variance: his PFAE has ranged from -1 in 2021 to slightly below 2 in 2018, with his success rate at 42% in '21 up to 67% in '17.
Justin Barber
I blast those numbers at you to show how consistently okay he's been. All indications are that he's a fine Cup driver who sits at the top of a tier of drivers that includes Austin Dillon, Chase Briscoe, and Ryan Preece. He's a fine anchor driver for a Legacy Motor Club that, during Jones' tenure, has descended into a persistent struggle the further away it got from Richard Petty and the closer it became to Jimmie Johnson.
While the Cup series has become substantially more competitive as a result of the NextGen platform, LMC hasn't much participated. Jones' average finish on NDOs was a bit better than 21st in 2021, blipped up to 17th in 2022 with the initial NextGen chaos, and has slipped to 19th and is now down below 21st in 2024. I don't blame him for this, as his average starting position has gone: 22nd, 20th, 23rd, 25th. It's worse when you include super speedways and road courses. His ASP / ARP / AFP slash line this season is 26.4 / 22.6 / 22.2. His teammate, John-Hunter Nemechek, has a 26.5 / 24.9 / 25.1 line.
The concept of a slash line has been borrowed from baseball. See Wikipedia.
LMC's failed to keep up with the competition, and the transition to Toyota has only hurt them more. Their fans must hope that a second season with their new manufacturer will turn out better. When Lap Raptor first launched, I had an automatic filter to exclude drivers finishing outside the top 24, thinking that only true backmarkers sat that far back. Legacy Motor Club is approaching that number, with Nemechek's 42 already outside it. Both drivers risk being tarnished if these results continue.