Erik Jones prepares for Kentucky and ‘Tradin’ Paint’

Erik Jones plans to be “tradin’ paint” both on and off the track this week at Kentucky Speedway.

The driver of Furniture Row Racing’s No. 77 SiriusXM Toyota Camry will compete in his first NASCAR Cup Series race at the 1.5-mile tri-oval in Saturday night’s Quaker State 400. The Sunoco Rookie of the Year candidate is coming off a ninth-place finish last Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway.

Before strapping in to his race car, however, Jones will get behind the microphone Thursday from noon to 11 a.m. MDT to co-host the SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) show “Tradin’ Paint” with regular hosts Jim Noble and Danny “Chocolate” Myers. He will do his part of the show remotely from the Kentucky Speedway media center while Noble and Myers will be in the Charlotte area.

Jones will be much more than a guest of the show. He’ll take calls from fans and be involved in the topics and discussions of the day as well as being interviewed by Noble and Myers.

“My dad always had SiriusXM in his vehicle as far as I can remember,” said Jones. “It was really nice to have since we traveled a lot for racing when I was younger. I listen to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio quite a bit but my other favorites are 26/Classic Vinyl, 25/Classic Rewind and 90s on 9. It should be a lot of fun. I’ve been on the show with Noble and Chocolate a bunch, as well as the other shows, so I’m looking forward to doing something a little different this time.”

The Byron, Mich., native is currently 17^th in the NASCAR Cup Series point standings after 17 races. He is nine points behind Ricky Stenhouse Jr. for 16^th place and 13 behind Ryan Newman for 15^th.

“I’ve had decent luck at Kentucky Speedway in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series so I’m looking forward to racing there again,” said Jones. “Last year’s track repave will make racing really challenging because it tends to have just one racing groove but we’ll make it work. I know Chris (Gayle, crew chief) will bring a fast SiriusXM Camry so we’ll do our best on the track and on pit road.”

In five starts at Kentucky Speedway, Jones has three top-five and four top-10 finishes, including runner-up showings in both the NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races in July 2015. He has also qualified no worse than 10^th, including the pole in last September’s Xfinity Series race where he led 100 laps before a multicar crash on a restart with 13 laps remaining left him with a 28^th-place finish.

The 267-lap, 400-mile Quaker State 400 will consist of three stages of 80/80/107 laps (laps/80/160/267). Saturday’s race will air live beginning at 5:30 p.m. MT (7:30 p.m. ET) on NBCSN, SiriusXM 90 and PRN. Qualifying (multi-car, three rounds) is scheduled for Friday at 4:15 p.m. MT (6:10 p.m. ET) on NBCSN, SiriusXM 90 and PRN.