Brandon Jones at 8:40 pm ET on Monday, April 27, 2015 Photo – BrandonJonesRacing.com
Brandon Jones is our guest on Fan4Racing Fan2Fan NASCAR & Race Talk on Monday, April 27, 2015 at 8:40 pm ET. Call 714-202-9918 or Tweet @Fan4RacingSite or @Sal_Sigala your questions or comments during our LIVE broadcast.
It’s been a unique season for Venturini Motorsports. After several seasons of fielding at least one full-time driver for the series championship, the team focused its efforts on fielding its flagship No. 25 Ansell-Menards car in a split season for ten-time ARCA Racing Series champion Frank Kimmel and Richard Childress Racing Development Driver, Brandon Jones. Both drivers were originally scheduled to split the 20-race ARCA schedule at ten races each.
After finishing fifth in the K&N East at Bristol, Brandon Jones now ranks eighth in the ARCA Racing Series after finishing sixth with Venturini Motorsports at Salem Speedway having never turned a lap there in his racing career before this weekend.
Before the race started, Jones faced another obstacle when his No.25 Ansell-Menards machine encountered mechanical gremlins resulting in loss of power in his Ilmor 396 engine. The timing of the unforeseen issue resulted in the Venturini Motorsports driver missing out on the lone 30-minute practice session because of rain on Saturday forcing the session to the day of the race. So instead of starting seventh, based on points, Jones had to start the race at the end of the field.
“That was pretty cool to fight back for sixth after the weekend we just had. Even though we broke our top-5 streak it’s still a good day to come home in the top-10,” said Brandon Jones. ”I can’t thank the guys enough for getting us back and going after the issues we had in practice. It was a total team effort.
“I didn’t know what to expect at the beginning; I had no laps and had never even seen this place before but not too bad. I figured it out pretty quick, passing cars at the beginning and we were second for a while, that was cool. I want to thank Menards, Ansell and Venturini Motorsports for giving us a car competes up front every single weekend.”
In four series events this season, Jones has raced three events that include two top-five finishes at Mobile and Nashville. Kimmel started the season racing the No. 25 at Daytona, finishing in fifth-place. Jones was originally the only driver scheduled to race with Venturini Motorsports at Talladega.
Photo – VMS
Thanks to the support of new sponsors, both Kimmel and Jones will field cars for Venturini Motorsports at Talladega this weekend. Jones will pilot the No. 25 Tide-Menards Toyota, while Kimmel will slide behind the wheel of the No. 15 101 Ranch Records-Menards Toyota. Jones will be debuting the bright orange Tide colors, a relationship he will carry on to the NASCAR XFINITY Series at Bristol Motor Speedway on August 21. Additionally, Venturini Motorsports will field the No. 55 JEGS Toyota driven by Joe Gibbs Racing development driver, Cody Coughlin giving the team a solid three-car effort in an event where teammates can make or break your chances to visit victory lane.
The veteran driver of the Venturini group, Frank Kimmel, looks forward to the team effort at Talladega.
“Sometimes when you have a multi-car, team you work extra hard to beat your teammates at the expense of beating everyone else,” said Kimmel. “We’re going to make sure we don’t do that. We want to work together and get up front and then we’ll settle it among ourselves on the last lap.”
The International Motorsports Hall of Fame 200 is at 6 pm ET on Friday May 1st. Watch the ARCA race coverage live flag-to-flag on Fox Sports 1.