Today, Erik Jones is pretty set at Petty GMS Motorsports. But where his career began, or rather, where he emerged on the radar, is quite a story. A story involving Kyle Busch for which Dale Earnhardt Jr. had to double-check with the two-time NASCAR Cup champion.

Jones recently was a guest on the Dale Jr. Download and one of the topics of their conversation was him beating Busch when he was only 16.

The #43 driver revealed how one day he got a call to come to Nashville “to shake down” Kyle Busch’s late model car. As you’d expect, he took the offer, went to Nashville.

“I meet all these guys for the first time, the next day, practice comes, Kyle (Busch) had to fly back to Talladega, that’s why they brought me,” Jones recalled. “So they’re like, all you need to do, go out, make a mock run.”

“Just go out and make a mock run, just don’t wreck the car.”

The Petty GMS driver described that he did go out and make a run without wrecking the car, but when he came back in, he was quite surprised.
“Everybody’s laughing when I come back in,” Jones disclosed. He felt they were laughing at him.

But that wasn’t the case.

“The guy I knew in the crew, he leans in, he’s like, ‘Dude you went faster than Kyle,'” he said.

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Dale Earnhardt Jr invites Kyle Busch for some healthy Cross-checking

It’s very well known that Kyle Busch is truly one of the all-time greatest talents in American racing history. So for Erik Jones to beat his time as a 16-year-old seems quite unbelievable.

This is not to say that it can’t be true, but the story did prompt Dale Jr. to cross-check it with Kyle Busch, perhaps in a healthy pulling-the-leg kind of sense.

Junior tagged Busch and wrote, “Is this true @KyleBusch ?? 👍🏼😀”

So far, Rowdy hasn’t replied to Junior, but do you think the story, as Erik Jones recalled it, could be true?

Let us know in the comments below.

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