March 28, 2014 — story and audio by Managing Editor Jacob Seelman for Speed77 Radio and Race Chaser Online — photo courtesy Brandon Jones Racing — RIDGEWAY, VA — Time for something different.
For Brandon Jones, that comes in the form of his first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) race of the season on Saturday. Jones has competed full time with Turner Scott Motorsports (TSM) on the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East circuit so far in 2014, but will make his move to the trucks at Martinsville Speedway this weekend as part of a limited NCWTS campaign.
The Kroger 250 will be Jones’ fourth-career start in the NCWTS and the Georgia native’s second start at Martinsville, where he finished 19th last fall.
“We have been running some tracks that are very similar to Martinsville Speedway the past few weeks in the K&N Series, and we have had some great race cars at those tracks, so hopefully we can carry that over to the truck race,” Jones said of some of the challenges faced this weekend. “It’s going to be a wild race, so hopefully we can survive until the end and have a shot to grab a really good finish.”
“I really just want to thank Steve Turner and Harry Scott, as well as my entire Turner Scott Motorsports team. I think the whole team has a lot of confidence from the way our K&N cars have performed, and I look forward to getting on track this weekend and racing on Saturday.”
Jones has reason to be optimistic, with two top tens in his four NASCAR K&N Pro Series East starts this season despite a couple of mishaps in Daytona and last weekend at Greenville heading into another relatively-flat track in Martinsville.
“We’ve had a ton of speed on the flat tracks this year, just caught a couple bad breaks at times,” Jones expressed. “I feel like a lot of what we’ve learned with the K&N car will translate over to the truck; even if the driving styles are different, some of the adjustments and little things are similar.”
Jones will roll into the weekend under the direction of crew chief Shane Huffman and the No. 33 Exide Chevrolet team will utilize chassis TSM-230, the same chassis that guided Jones’ teammate Ben Kennedy to a fourth-place finish last fall at Martinsville.
“The good part about this weekend is we know we have a truck that’s good at Martinsville,” Jones laughed. “If we can do half of what Ben did with this truck last time out I think we’ll be in for a good run.”
Jones will also take part in the NCWTS autograph session in front of the main Martinsville ticket office just off Turn 4. The one-hour session begins Friday night, March 28th, at 5 p.m. EDT.
The Kroger 250 goes green live on Saturday, March 29 at 2 PM Eastern on FOX Sports 1, with audio coverage on MRN Radio and Sirius XM, channel 90.
Listen in as we sat down to talk with Brandon about his outlook on this weekend’s Camping World Truck Series event at Martinsville and his 2014 season to date:
About Exide Technologies
Exide Technologies has a rich history spanning more than 125 years in the battery business. Their strengths demonstrate Exide’s position as a forerunner of industrial advancement around the world. With countless contributions to the growth of technology, their story reflects the spirit of innovation and resilience at its best.
Today, Exide serves the complex stored energy needs of customers around the world. They provide services and systems that enhance vehicle performance and fleet utilization as well as those that reduce risk of temporary interruptions of power supplies. Their global footprint melds together their two significant bases of experience in transportation and industrial markets and provides for better and faster means of introducing innovations in products and services. Exide is working to change the way the world uses and stores electrical energy.
For more information, go to exide.com.
