- Name
- Brandon Jones
- Birth Date
- February 18, 1997
- Hometown
- Atlanta, Ga
For the 2023 NASCAR Xfinity Series season, JR Motorsports adds a multi-race winner in Brandon Jones to its championship-caliber roster. Jones joins JRM fresh off a 2022 NXS season in which the 25-year-old Georgia native won at Martinsville Speedway, earned five pole awards (tied for most in the NXS) and led a career-high 240 laps. Racing into 2023, expectations are high for Jones, a six-time qualifier for the NXS Playoffs, and crew chief Jason Burdett, who enters his first season atop the pit box for Jones and the No. 9 Chevrolet.
Jones, who will celebrate his birthday for his inaugural run in the No. 9 JRM car at Daytona on February 18, has been a stalwart in the NXS since 2016, amassing five victories and making the NXS Playoffs in six of seven seasons. His Xfinity Series career which started in 2015 has tallied 36 top-five, 101 top-10 finishes and eight poles while leading 828 laps.
Last season, Jones was on the cusp of making his first Championship 4 in the late stages of the penultimate race at Martinsville. Jones had qualified on the pole and led 98 laps, but missed out on the opportunity to race for the championship when he was eliminated from contention in an untimely Turn 1 last-lap crash.
Jones ran a partial NXS schedule in 2015 as well as a mix of races in both the Craftsman Truck Series and ARCA Menards Series. In his final NXS race of the 2015 season, Jones scored his career-best finish of fifth at Kentucky Speedway while collecting nine top fives and 15 top 10s in 27 starts between the Truck and ARCA series, Jones then signed on for a full season of NXS racing for the 2016 season. The then-19-year-old Jones qualified for his first NXS Playoff behind the strength of 12 top-10 finishes before finishing 10th in the overall standings.
The next three seasons that followed for Jones saw the Atlanta native rack up eight top fives and 36 top 10s, while qualifying for the playoffs in the 2018 and 2019 seasons, with his best Series points finish of ninth in 2018. Jones’ breakout season came in 2020, where he earned a career-high three wins, 10 top fives and 19 top 10s, with an average finish of 12.8 and a sixth-place effort in the championship standings.
Following the 2020 campaign, Jones has notched one win, 17 top fives, 32 top 10s and qualified for the NXS Playoffs in 2021 and 2022.
Jones began his racing career at the age of 13 in the Pro Truck divisions at local short tracks in Georgia and collected track championships at both Lanier Raceplex and Gresham Motorsports Park in his first full-time season in 2011 at the age of 14. Jones then went on to compete in Late Models in the Pro All Stars Series (PASS) and United Auto Racing Association (UARA) in 2012 where he won his first UARA-STARS race at Concord (N.C.) Speedway before making his debut in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East later that season at Greenville-Pickens Speedway, finishing 14th.
For the 2013 season, Jones competed in the full UARA and PASS series seasons as well as a partial schedule in the K&N East/West Series. Later that season, Jones went on to make his national series debut in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and finished 27th at Bristol Motor Speedway, 20th at Iowa Speedway and 19th at Martinsville Speedway.
The 2014 season saw Jones move to the K&N Pro Series East full-time and make select starts in the Truck Series and three ARCA Menards Series starts. The then-17-year-old became the first driver in ARCA history to have back-to-back wins in his first two ARCA series starts when he took the checkered at Winchester Speedway followed by a win at Lucas Oil Speedway and narrowly missed a three-pete at Madison (W.I.) the following week. Jones then scored his first K&N Pro Series win at Iowa in August of 2014 and secured a third-place finish at Dover Motor Speedway in the Truck Series. The Georgia native went on to finish fourth in the K&N Pro Series East championship standings.
Jones heads into 2023 with Burdett, the winningest crew chief in JRM history, and a team around him that has advanced to the Championship 4 in five of the last seven seasons.