Shooting for the top
Buckshot Jones ready for Winston Cup rookie wars
Posted: Thursday January 14, 1999 07:27 PM
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Jones (left) has won two Busch Series races and has established himself as a tough competitor AP |
SPARTANBURG, S.C. (AP) -- The future of Roy "Buckshot" Jones
was written on the back of a napkin at a fast-food restaurant nine
years ago.
The Georgia driver, expected to vie with Tony Stewart and
Elliott Sadler for Winston Cup rookie-of-the-year honors this
season, was a long way from that kind of notoriety when he and his
father, Billy, sat down to eat one day in 1990.
"I had just flipped and wrecked my only race car, and I was
really down in the dumps," the 28-year-old driver said. "We
weren't sure about the next race, but my dad asked me where I
wanted to go with this racing stuff and I said, 'All the way.' "
So they got serious about it.
"We wrote a five-year plan on that napkin to get us to the
Busch Series," Jones said. "Anytime we got midway through a
season and were halfway competitive, we'd move up to the next
level. It was tough, but it got us to this point."
Jones was a freshman at the University of Georgia when the
optimistic plan was written.
"My dad told me that he would help support my career if I kept
up a B average in my classes," Jones said. "I raced late-model
stock cars and graduated with a degree in business management."
Billy Jones recalled that his son did all his own work on the
car.
"I told him he couldn't hire anybody until he graduated," the
elder Jones said.
Fortunately for Jones, his father had become wealthy in the
fiberoptic cable business. So sponsorship, the bane of many young
racers, was no problem. The elder Jones says he has spent $12 million to bring his son to the brink of stock car's racing top series.
"I would have been better off giving him $4 million right out
of college and let him retire right then," Billy Jones joked.
"But, like Buckshot says, we wouldn't have had the experiences
we've had."
Buckshot -- so nicknamed because his grandfather said the kid was as tough as buckshot -- has won two Busch Series races and established himself
as a tough competitor. Now, he faces a very difficult move to the top of the sport.
Ricky Pearson, the son of retired NASCAR great David Pearson and
recently promoted to general manager of Buckshot Racing, realizes
it could be tough going.
"Elliott is driving for the Wood Brothers, a team my daddy
drove for," said the younger Pearson. "And Tony Stewart is
driving for Joe Gibbs, and I'm sure he'll get lots of advice from
[teammate] Bobby Labonte and the rest of those guys."
But Pearson has resources, too.
"I know a lot of people in Winston Cup racing and, if we get in
trouble, I can go to them for help," he said. "But the biggest
plus we have is Buckshot. He's the poorest loser I know, other than
my father. He just wants to win so much."
First, though, the new Winston Cup team must get off the ground.
Jones got a taste of the big time last year, running five Winston
Cup races with a best finish of eighth in Dover, Del.
"The biggest thing I noticed in moving up from the Busch Series
is that 200-horsepower difference," Jones said. "It's going to
take some getting used to, especially in getting through the
corners."
With competition as tough as it is in Winston Cup, the team is
justifiably concerned about a good start.
"We start the season without any series points from last year,
so it's a major goal of ours to make the first four races," Jones
said. "We can't fall back on provisionals, and we know how hard it
can be just to make races."
Even 1998's top rookie, Kenny Irwin, missed a field last year.
"We expect we'll be running mid-pack at the beginning of the
season and then begin to move up," Jones said. "It would be great
to finish in the top 20 in every race. But we're just going to try
to go out there and improve as time goes on."
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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