In the Next Gen era, racing at Texas Motor Speedway has been a battle of attrition. The last five races in the “Lone Star State,” including Sunday’s Würth 400 that featured a season-high 12 yellow flags, have reached double-digit cautions.
Erik Jones and Legacy Motor Club were among the beneficiaries of a chaotic Texas race. The No. 43 Toyota looked sporty in Saturday’s practice session and qualified 14th, but a pair of pit-road penalties during the race hindered Jones’ progression.
In the opening stage of Jones’ 300th career Cup start, he charged to 10th position to earn his first stage point since Martinsville Speedway in late March. The No. 43 car faded to 21st at the end of the second stage, while his Legacy teammate John Hunter Nemechek led the way in 12th.
The madness was on in Stage 3.
Many teams capable of contending for the victory were taken out during the final stage throughout seven cautions. Jones stayed clean, continuously moving up the leaderboard. On an overtime restart, he was slotted on the outside lane of the second row behind Team Penske teammate Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney.
Jones dropped to sixth at the white flag, but charged past Ricky Stenhouse Jr. on the final lap to round out the top five. It’s his first top five finish since the Playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway last fall, and his first on a non-superspeedway since the 2023 postseason event at Kansas Speedway.
Prior to Sunday, Jones had a best effort of 12th in the opening 10 races of 2025, coming in the Daytona 500. Jones was relieved to recover to a fifth-place effort.
“It was a sloppy day in a lot of ways,” Jones said after the race. “We had two pit road penalties, but just happy to come back from it and get a top-five. It would have been pretty disappointing to have a car this good, kind of our first car this year that’s been pretty strong, to throw it away. I thought we were headed that way, but it turned out well. I would love this to be the start of our summer stretch and just keep it going.”
Jones is a realist and knows the two-car organization has work to do. The company made a plethora of behind the scenes changes over the offseason to bolster its performance. It showed in the opening two superspeedways, with Nemechek scoring a pair of top 10s and co-owner Jimmie Johnson scoring a podium finish in the “Great American Race.”
Legacy had hit a dry spell since February, with Texas being the first race it had a top 10 since Atlanta Motor Speedway. But with Nemechek finishing eighth on Sunday, it’s the first time since rebranding to Legacy that the team put multiple cars inside the top 10 at a track other than Daytona (2023 and 2024).
“Last year was tough and this year started out a little bit tough and we’ve had our ups and downs,” Jones said. “I’m just happy to have a good car.”
Nemechek echoed Jones’ sentiment, knowing that putting two cars in the top 10 can do wonders for the building organization.
“We unloaded with speed this week, which was nice, in practice,” Nemechek stated. “Had good long run speed. It was an up-and-down day for us. Just kind of all over the place with what we had. Glad to come home eighth. The last couple of restarts were tough with the positions that we were in. I’ve got to get better from a driver’s standpoint racing up towards the front, but I haven’t had any chances at that, so [I’m] progressing and learning.”
Both drivers moved up in the regular-season championship standings with solid Texas performances. Jones leaped one spot to 29th, while Nemechek jumped three spots to 23rd, 33 points below the elimination line.