Maintaining a solid place in the NASCAR Cup Series is no easy thing. With so much competition, one bad year can put a driver in the hot seat. And we all know how wild NASCAR’s seasons can get. But the drivers who stay steady, stay in the garage, and always find a ride — they’re something special. Erik Jones is one of those guys.
The Michigan native may not be the flashiest or the winningest, but he’s been around long enough to earn veteran status. It’s been 10 years since he made his Cup debut, filling in for an injured Kyle Busch in the No. 18 for Joe Gibbs Racing at Kansas in 2015.
Jones has truly seen it all. His career started during the era of NASCAR’s “tapered spacers” rule to cut horsepower. Since then, he’s raced through the debut of the Next Gen car and everything in between. This weekend, starting 14th at Texas Motor Speedway, he hit a major career milestone.
Erik Jones Logs Impressive Longevity Milestone
Jones is in his third season with Legacy Motor Club, and so far, 2025 hasn’t gone quite how he hoped. Sure, he kicked things off with a solid 12th-place run in the Daytona 500, but since then, just a couple of top-20s — most recently finishing 18th at Talladega.
He’s still looking for his first top-10 of the season, and Texas might just be the place to get it. Not only is he starting in a good spot, but Sunday, May 4, also marks his 300th career Cup start.
An impressive milestone reached with countless memories made along the way.
Congratulations on 300, @Erik_Jones! pic.twitter.com/D6LR0j6tdc
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) May 4, 2025
That’s a big deal. For comparison, NASCAR legend Tony Stewart made 618 career starts. And here’s Jones, only 28 years old, already halfway there. He’s racked up three wins and 90 top-10s, which means nearly a third of his Cup starts have ended in the top 10.
It’s been a long road. His first full Cup season came in 2017 with Furniture Row Racing. In 2018, he moved to JGR, won the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona, and made the playoffs for the first time. He returned to the playoffs again in 2019, then joined Richard Petty Motorsports in 2021, and now, Legacy Motor Club. It’s been quite the journey, and one Jones is proud of.
Speaking about the milestone, Jones said, “I don’t know how many guys have made 300 or more starts in the Cup Series, but you know, being around for that long is never easy. You know, there’s 36 guys that get to do it every week at the Cup level, and to be one that’s done it, I’m gonna push in a decade now, so that’s really neat.”
So here’s hoping the No. 43 driver celebrates with a top-10 — or even better, a top-5 — at Texas. It’s a track that’s been good to him: 13 starts, three top-fives, seven top-10s, and an average finish of 12.3. So yeah, the hopes are high.