Erik Jones (injured back) medically cleared, plans to race May 12

Erik Jones is targeting a return to racing on May 12 at Darlington, missing this weekend's NASCAR Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway as a precaution after doctors cleared him in his recovery from a back injury.

His Legacy Motor Club team made the announcement Thursday, with Corey Heim to replace Jones in the No. 43 Toyota for the AdventHealth 400 on Sunday. Heim, 21, made his Cup debut last week at Dover (Del.) Motor Speedway, qualified 32nd and placed 25th in an incident-free race.

Jones sustained a compression fracture in his lower vertebra on April 21 in a crash at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. Late in the race, John Hunter Nemechek's car appeared to contact the back of Bubba Wallace's car, which then clipped Jones' car and sent it into the outside wall.

Jones, 27, made the trip to Dover last weekend to support Heim and the racing group and plans to do the same in Kansas City, Kan.

"As far as coming back, I think it is week-to-week," Jones said at Dover. "My injury fortunately, is on the mild side, so we'll just have to see how it's healing up, how I'm feeling. Again, I'm feeling better and better every day."

Jones has one top-10 finish in 11 starts and is in 23rd place, 229 points behind leader Kyle Larson in the NASCAR Cup Series standings.

—Field Level Media