In the shadows of the higher financed efforts of nitro racers Mike Neff and Bob Tasca III, rookie Pro Stock racer Rickie Jones, 21, has been hard at work establishing his value as a legitimate Rookie of the Year candidate on the NHRA tour. 

Only three times since 1996 has a Pro Stock driver won the award and since 2004, the award has been exclusively nitro winners.

Those figures don’t faze Jones, the second-generation driver and son of chassis building figure Rick Jones. He’s grown up around the sport and at one time served as crew chief for his dad and raced a Top Sportsman bracket car on the off-weekends of racing IHRA Pro Stock.

In the shadows of the higher financed efforts of nitro racers Mike Neff and Bob Tasca III, rookie Pro Stock racer Rickie Jones, 21, has been hard at work establishing his value as a legitimate Rookie of the Year candidate on the NHRA tour. 

Only three times since 1996 has a Pro Stock driver won the award and since 2004, the award has been exclusively nitro winners.

Those figures don’t faze Jones, the second-generation driver and son of chassis building figure Rick Jones. He’s grown up around the sport and at one time served as crew chief for his dad and raced a Top Sportsman bracket car on the off-weekends of racing IHRA Pro Stock.

He only wishes to make his dad proud and do the best he can for the family’s Quarter-Max product line, the major sponsor for the family’s first foray into the rough and tumble world of 500-inch NHRA Pro Stock racing.

“My dad has given me a lot of opportunities to step up and has given me the freedom to take responsibility for my own decisions and do things,” Jones told CompetitionPlus. “For him to trust me that much is huge. I have so much respect for him for that.”

Jones didn’t let his father down by qualifying as high as ninth in his debut at the NHRA Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla. A handful of racer later, at the NHRA Midwest Nationals in St. Louis, Mo., Jones won his first round of competition. He’s scored two quarter-final finishes and despite running a limited schedule, ranks 16th among Pro Stock point earners.

Jones has been absent from the tour, skipping the last two stops in order to prepare for a strong finish. He’s returning at this weekend’s NHRA Lucas Oil Nationals in Brainerd, Minn.

"We've been out testing these last few weeks, and we're making improvements with every pass down the track," said Jones. "We qualified fairly well in Denver. I made a rookie mistake first round, but I'm learning more and more with every pass. The team is working incredibly hard and doing a great job. From testing, it looks like we're catching up to some of the front-runners. Hopefully we can prove that in Brainerd this weekend."

Jones has never raced at Brainerd Raceway and is looking forward to tackling a new track.

"I've heard great things about Brainerd,” Jones added. “Every place we go I learn something new, and I expect that this event will be no different. I hear they have great fans there as well. I'm looking forward to racing at Brainerd and experiencing another new track. This Quarter-Max Dodge Stratus team is locked and loaded."

So is Jones, even if his odds of winning the rookie honors are a long shot.