HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. — Despite the attaboy pats on the back, proud words from his father and congratulatory text messages lighting up his phone, 19-year-old Erik Jones was bummed.

As the substitute driver for Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 20 car while Matt Kenseth serves a two-race suspension, Jones finished 12th Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway in just his second Sprint Cup Series start. And completing that 500-mile race — the longest of his life — capped a triple-duty weekend which also saw him extend his Camping World Truck Series championship lead with a win.

Normally, a 12th-place finish under those circumstances and in spite of a flat tire late in the race would be reason for a young driver to celebrate.

Not Jones.

“We should have finished seventh or eighth, so I was bummed,” he said. “It’s hard for me to take that if things would have been right, this is what should have happened. That’s how I’ve always been.”

No one, it seems, has more expectations for Jones than Jones himself. Not JGR, who plans to promote him to a full-time Xfinity Series schedule next season. Not Toyota, which is counting him among the drivers who will become the manufacturer’s future. Not Kyle Busch, who discovered Jones after getting beat by him in the prestigious Snowball Derby Late Model race.

Just below the surface of a smiling, floppy-haired teenager is a perfectionist racer who might get carried away with competitiveness at times but makes no apologies for it.

“At the end of a day, I can’t think of a single person i the world that wants to finish second at something,” he said.

Jones certainly doesn’t, and he made that clear over lunch with USA TODAY Sports this week in the midst of the busiest stretch of racing he’s ever had. He ran three races at Texas and has three more on the schedule this weekend at Phoenix International Raceway — all while trying to wrap up the Truck Series title in his first full season (he currently has a 17-point lead over defending champion Matt Crafton).

But the Michigan native appeared relaxed despite the stressful schedule, chatting casually between bites of burnt-end mac and cheese at an upscale barbecue restaurant a few miles from the JGR shop.

Jones said he knows he can’t win every race but sees no reason he shouldn’t contend in every race — even with a relative lack of experience.

“Why can’t we?” he said. “That’s the way I look at it: Why not me?”

GETTING NOTICED

That approach is how Jones, driving for his family’s Late Model team, got noticed by the NASCAR world — specifically Busch — in 2012. Jones first caught Busch’s eye when the youngster blew by during a race at Watermelon Capital Speedway in Georgia — “I was like, holy (crap)!” Busch said). His victory over Busch in the Snowball Derby later that year was all the JGR driver needed to see.

Shortly after the Derby, Busch called Toyota executive Ed Laukes and left an enthusiastic voicemail emphasizing the need to get Jones on the manufacturer’s roster.

“It was about three minutes of F-bombs from him going, ‘I can’t believe this kid! We’d better figure out a home for him immediately!’” Laukes told USA TODAY Sports. “He was going crazy. I called him back and said, ‘I never heard you so excited about a young driver.’ He said, ‘The kid is great. He’s going to be a champion.’”

Busch grinned at Laukes’ version of the story and said it was only a slight exaggeration. Though he races against young drivers in Late Model races all over the country, Busch was particularly impressed by Jones due to his success in a family-owned car that didn’t have the resources of top Late Model teams.

“It’s always really hard to see kids succeed in those situations,” Busch told USA TODAY Sports. “That to me was really cool to see the family operation was doing really well.”

In other words, Jones was winning in spite of his equipment — not because of it. And his parents had no experience in racing other than watching it on TV. Though a sign hangs in his father’s barn that says “Dave Jones, Racing Champion” that’s only because it was given to him as a gift when he was young.

But it wasn’t Dave who first got his son into a car. Erik only started racing after his mother, Carol, read an article about Quarter Midget racing (where many kids get their start) during a plane flight. They put Erik in a Quarter Midget at age 6, and he immediately took a liking to it.

He tried other sports, like baseball, football, basketball, wrestling and track — but racing was the one that stuck. As Jones came through the ranks, he studied how to improve by watching hours of racing videos on YouTube.

But his success in Late Models guaranteed nothing, even after winning the Snowball Derby. At 16, Jones was starting to think about college — where would he go? what would he major in? — when the phone rang. And so it came to be that just 20 days after the Derby win, Erik and Dave were in North Carolina to meet with Kyle Busch Motorsports about a partial Truck Series schedule.

“All the sudden it was like, ‘Hey, you’ve got a shot to be a race car driver,’” Jones said. “Like, for real.”

FIERY COMPETITOR

When Erik and Dave watched races together at home in tiny Byron, Mich. (Population: 600), Dave always wanted his son to stay tuned to the post-race show.

“I’d be ready to watch something else and he’d say, ‘Wait, you gotta watch the interviews, that’s the best part!’” Erik said.

Through those years of TV viewing, Jones made up his mind: If he ever made it as a driver — no, when he made it — he wanted to be known as a nice guy instead of a villain. But he also didn’t want to be vanilla.

“I never wanted to come across as the guy who just rattles off a bunch of sponsors,” Jones said. “I could never stand that when I was younger and watching races on TV. I don’t want to be that guy; I want people to hear what I really thought.

“But at the same time, I know there’s a balance. I don’t think I’ve found the balance yet.”

The balance is particularly tough for Jones, who — like his mentor, Busch — can take a loss pretty hard. As a longtime Jeff Gordon fan, Jones admired how the four-time champion was able to show his emotion while still conducting himself with class — something Jones would like to emulate, he said.

At the same time, it can be a challenge. After losing a heartbreaking photo finish to Kasey Kahne during a Truck Series race at Charlotte in May, Jones briefly walked off before composing himself and doing a TV interview.

“I was upset. There’s no other way to put it,” he said. “The biggest thing for me is really knowing how hard those (crew) guys work. To feel like I gave it away at the end of the race, that’s what makes me the most upset or the most frustrated.”

Busch, obviously, can relate. He’s been criticized over the course of his career for storming off without comment at times.

“You see him just like me after races when you get upset because when you lose in a close finish, that’s just our mentality,” Busch said. “I totally understand and respect that. It’s frustrating when you’re the best guy all day and all the sudden at the end of the race, you get beat. That hurts. So I sympathize with that. A lot of people don’t like that, but they’re not under the scrutiny and pressure that we are, either.”

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