Erik Jones said LEGACY MOTOR CLUB is on a strong run with the No. 43 team, and the organization is already thinking about the jump to three full-time cars next season. The driver said the group is making a lot of points and running right near the back end of the top 10, a stretch of form he sees as proof the team is moving in the right direction.
Jones made the comments Saturday, June 6, before the NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway, where he was available to the media in his No. 43 Dollar Tree Toyota Camry XSE. That timing matters because the team is not just talking about a future expansion in the abstract; it is trying to carry its current momentum into a larger operation while the season is still unfolding.
For Jones, the appeal of the next step is straightforward. More cars mean more information. He said going to three cars is another data point and another value for the organization, even if the payoff comes with a heavy lift behind the scenes. The challenge, he said, is not simply adding a car to the roster. It is building the people structure to support it.
That is where the friction shows. Jones said LEGACY MOTOR CLUB will need to hire approximately 60 people, if not more, to make the move work, and he said finding that many people in today’s NASCAR labor market is not easy. He added that the hardest part will be bringing everything together once the team is in place: the new team, the new driver, the new crew chief and the related pieces that have to fit on the first try.
The expansion would mark a significant step for a team that Jones says is already operating from a better place on track. The No. 43 has been scoring points and holding its own inside the pack, but the next phase will be judged as much by hiring and integration as by lap times. In NASCAR, a stronger race car can buy attention; building a third program can test whether the organization has the depth to match it.
Jones also said he had spent the last month doing a large amount of simulator work on the finalized San Diego track, which he described as similar to Chicago but bigger and with more turns. He called the surface extremely rough, and he joked that if he ended up in the Bay he might have to call it quits. The lighter note fit the day’s conversation, but the more serious one was bigger: LEGACY MOTOR CLUB believes it has a good thing going with the No. 43, and now it has to prove it can scale that progress without losing its edge.
He also said he always looks forward to the week of racing his late model program close to home and spending a couple of days at Berlin, where he and one other guy named Mike go over the setup for the car. For Jones, the work is familiar and enjoyable. For LEGACY MOTOR CLUB, the coming months will be about turning a promising stretch into a three-car operation that can actually function at full speed.
