NASCAR driver Erik Jones seems to be doing well after fracturing his vertebra in April. While speaking to Bob Pockrass of Fox Sports on Thursday, the 28-year-old driver gave an update on his recovery.
“It’s good. I felt 100 percent now for the last three weeks,” Jones said. “I’m back in the gym doing what I was doing before as far as lifting weights and don’t have any lingering effects. I had a doctor’s appointment last week going to make sure everything was healing good. Only have one more in two more months. That will be my final one to check back up, but I’m feeling really good.
Jones might be back at full strength, but he knows Sunday’s race at Sonoma will be challenging. “This weekend will definitely be a big test,” Jones said. “It’s probably the most physical test since then that I’ve had of any track between the track itself, the heat of this weekend. I’ll feel good this weekend, I’ll feel good about really the rest of the year.”
Erik Jones was involved in a serious wreck
Jones wasinvolved in a nose-first wreck at Talledega on Apr. 21. He was initnally evaluated and rleased from Talladega’s infield care center, but Jones was then transported to UAB University Hopsital in Birmingham, Alabama for further evaluation. And when Jones went home to North Carolina later that night and met with specialists, it was determined that he suffered a compression fracture in a lower vertebra. Jones missed the next two races before making his return in Darlington.
“There was probably a possibility coming back right away with the injury, but Dover was not a place where that was going to happen,” Jones said before the Darlington race, per NASCAR.com. “Even Kansas was a place that was going to be challenging with high speed and a lot of risk of being an incident — not of your own doing necessarily.
“Coming to Darlington, I feel like you can control your own destiny a bit. There is less risk for an accident like that. Also, three weeks in, I feel like we are on the safe side of 100 percent, and I feel 100 percent.”
Jones is looking to have a stong second half of the 2024 Cup Series season. After finishing eighth in the Daytona 500, Jones has not recorded another top-to finish all year. The last race Jones won was the CookOut Southern 500 in 2022.
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