Erik Jones made it look easy as he claimed the checkered flag in the American Ethanol 200 at Iowa Speedway. But it wasn’t. He had some stiff competition from Ryan Blaney for most of the race.
Jones was able to get out of pit road with the lead just in front of Blaney on the last round of pit stops after a caution on lap 125. From there, Blaney used lapped traffic to close the gap on Jones and went three wide for the lead on lap 184 in an attempt to charge for the lead but got loose coming out of the corner. The rear right wheel on Blaney’s truck made a smooth black tire tread mark on the track as he brought the truck out of a slow slide to avoid any contact with Jones. There was minimal contact as Jones was caught in the middle of the action with the lapped truck of Justin Lofton on the outside. Jones was able to reclaim the lead and stayed there until the flagman waved the checkered flag on the stand.
