A year ago at this time, Joe Gibbs Racing was dealing with the loss of Carl Edwards, a top-tier driver coming off a heartbreaking loss in the championship playoff round.
Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin lead Joe Gibbs Racing after Matt Kenseth’s departure
Erik Jones is driving the No. 20 car this season, replacing Matt Kenseth, who was dropped for financial reasons.
As the offseason begins to wind down, and the dawn of the 2018 season approaches -- there are less than 30 days until the season-opening Daytona 500 -- JGR finds itself in a familiar position, trying to move ahead without one of its mainstay drivers who played a substantial role in the organization emerging as one of NASCAR’s most dominant over the past three years.
The latest loss is Matt Kenseth, who in a budgetary move, was dropped for promising youngster Erik Jones. Because of Kenseth’s high salary and Jones’ availability -- he was farmed out last season to JGR’s affiliate team, Furniture Row Racing -- the move made sense from a financial perspective. However, Kenseth’s veteran knowhow is something JGR will have to overcome in the short term, even if Jones can come close to replicating the results of the man he’s replacing.
After the turnover, JGR’s 2018 driver roster consists of Jones, Kyle Busch, Denny Hamlin, and Daniel Suarez, who after Edwards’ unexpected departure was tabbed to drive the No. 19 car. Busch and Hamlin have each been with JGR for 10-plus years, with Jones and Suarez both entering their second seasons.
Unable to land a ride equal to the caliber of JGR, Kenseth, 45, opted to step away from full-time racing and has said he doesn’t know if he’ll return.
”I’m looking forward to having Erik as a part of our team,” Busch said Tuesday at the NASCAR Media Tour at the Charlotte Convention Center. “It’s just unfortunate that we had to get rid of a guy, and we’re not able to have Matt Kenseth anymore.
“It’s going to be a little bit of kind of a setback, if you will, for us, especially with last year losing Carl and bringing on Daniel, and now this year losing Matt and bringing on Erik. It’s not quite the veteran status that we had two years ago.”
Kenseth joined JGR in 2013 after 13 seasons with Roush Fenway Racing. His arrival is credited publicly and privately by those within JGR for helping the team reach a higher and more consistent level of success. On the track, Kenseth won 15 races during his five-year stint with JGR, while off the track, his demeanor and leadership helped a team featuring a driver lineup of headstrong personalities reach its full potential.
“He was a great teammate on and off the race track,” Hamlin said. “I had a really close relationship to him off the race track. We were pretty good friends, and really during the meetings he was very engaged, asked a lot of questions, and that obviously is important in chemistry with any race team. That probably will be the next thing that will be missed the most is the input and the things that he said during the meetings to kind of send us in the right direction.”
Busch is especially complimentary of his now former teammate. After a career marked by playoff futility, he won his first Cup Series crown in 2015. He followed that with consecutive trips to the championship round, finishing runner-up last season and third two years ago.
“Obviously, I feel as though (Kenseth) was a guy that I really looked up to, looking and watching and understanding what he was able to do and accomplish throughout his career and always being right there and always being a championship contender,” Busch said. “He helped me kind of model myself a little bit, if you will, to being able to make the final three years in a row. It’s going to be a little bit of a learning curve for Erik.”
But although Jones lacks experience, he does possess promise. He won the Camping World Truck Series championship in 2015 and beat Suarez to capture the Cup Series Rookie of the Year award last season. Industry insiders hold him in high regard, and he’s considered a potential future champion.
Helping Jones’ transition from FRR to JGR, his crew chief from last season, Chris Gayle, will shift move with him. Like Jones, Gayle is a product of JGR’s developmental system and was loaned to FRR as part of the alliance between the two Toyota-backed teams.
“It is a big transition in some ways, but in some ways it’s not,” Jones said. “The same race cars, same people that I’ve really known for a long time, and even worked with some last year in conjunction with Furniture Row. There is some similarities, but there’s also some stuff that I’ll have to learn along the way.”
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