Backed by Rangers Nation, Xfinity Series driver wants strong run

It hasn’t taken long for Brandon Jones to see a spike in fan interest this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway.

That’s in large part because of the Texas Rangers and their fan base. Jones has become an instant fan favorite in the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 this evening, as the local baseball team is sponsoring the No. 33 Chevrolet.

“Oh my gosh, I can already tell how many people are latching on to us because of how many new Twitter and Instagram followers I’ve gotten,” Jones said. “I’ve seen a big increase in people paying attention to us.”

Jones, 19, threw out the ceremonial first pitch prior to the Rangers-Mariners game on Wednesday, and surely made a few family and friends jealous in the process.

“Everyone wishes they would have been able to do it,” Jones said. “I’d been out in the yard throwing and practicing just to make sure I didn’t look foolish.”

With having the Rangers fan base behind him, Jones would like to use this weekend to try and attract baseball fans to NASCAR. And he knows the best way to do that is by being successful on the track.

So far, Jones has done that. He has placed 11th-or-better in the season’s first five races, including a season-best sixth-place run at Las Vegas last month. Maybe that’s a good sign, as Las Vegas and Texas are both 1.5-mile tracks.

“I think we have a really good shot at a top-five run here,” said Jones, who finished seventh in the truck race last fall at Texas.

Eyeing Victory Lane

Daniel Suarez is leading in the Xfinity Series points standings, posting five top-10 finishes in the first five races. But he’s searching for more.

Suarez has yet to visit Victory Lane in his Xfinity Series career, and believes it’s a matter of time before it happens. Maybe it’ll happen Friday in the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300. Suarez finished sixth in last fall’s Xfinity Series race and also has two runner-up finishes in truck races here.

“This is almost like my home track, a lot of friends and family from Mexico come to this race and it’s a lot of fun,” Suarez said. “We’re looking forward to keep building what we can in the last few races [at Texas] to keep that and being competitive to get our first ‘W’ here.”

Suarez feels he and his No. 19 Toyota team have the pieces in place to get that coveted first victory.

“It’s just a question of time,” he said. “We have been in the top-five pretty much every race. When you’re doing that, pretty much sooner or later it’s going to happen.”

All is well

If there were any lingering hard feelings between city officials and the Fort Worth Convention and Visitors Bureau, and TMS president Eddie Gossage over “banner-gate” they appeared to have been resolved at what might best be described as the Treaty of the Fort Worth Club.

City dignitaries feted Gossage and TMS over lunch at the venerable downtown social club at a noontime meal hosted by the CVB, which promoted the event as a celebration of 20 years of the track.

While declaring April 7, 2016, as Texas Motor Speedway Day across the city, Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price called Gossage “the best salesman that I know … the P.T. Barnum of the speedway crowd.”

Gossage told the Star-Telegram in a story published earlier this week that he had been discouraged with the city’s and CVB’s efforts to promote race events at TMS, despite the track spending $70 million annually to bring fans from across the country to the area and a $300 million economic impact every year.

“But you drive to downtown Fort Worth and there isn’t even a ‘Welcome Race Fans’ banner,” Gossage said. “There’s banners everywhere about some other event or activity going on. It’s unfortunate.”

Robert Jameson, president and CEO of the CVB, presented Gossage one of the banners that will hang from lamp posts downtown this weekend.

“I read where you did not see any banners downtown,” Jameson said. “Well, let’s start with this new one right here.”

Gossage, never accused of being a shrinking violet nor sheepish, wasn’t one Thursday, either, appearing to suggest that that banner-gate was now an issue of much ado about nothing.

“My degree is in journalism and I took the course, the advanced course in how to be a reporter and take one word or a small phrase and make it the crashing of the Hindenburg,” Gossage said. “If you ask me a question I’m going to tell you the truth. I said one thing about banners.”

This story was originally published April 7, 2016 at 8:41 PM with the headline "Backed by Rangers Nation, Xfinity Series driver wants strong run."