History will remember December 3, 2012, as the seminal moment of Erik Jones’ career.

Seminal but not paramount.

That was the night, of course, that Jones outdueled Kyle Busch to win the prestigious Snowball Derby -- an achievement that ultimately propelled him to a career at the highest levels of NASCAR. It’s a story that crested last month when Jones won for the first time in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series at Daytona International Speedway, but it’s not even close to finished.

Jones' winning the Snowball Derby and immediately becoming the apple of Joe Gibbs’ eyes makes for a good story, but it’s not entirely accurate.

The real story has been detailed here before, but Jones actually tested a Kyle Busch Motorsports Super Late Model earlier that season when the owner-driver had to miss practice for the All-American 400 at Fairgrounds Speedway Nashville.

Jones shook down the car while Busch was away, an opportunity arranged by spotter Branden Lines, who was close with KBM Super Late Model director Chris Gabehart -- now a Xfinity Series crew chief for Joe Gibbs Racing.

"Branden was actually the guy that got me the opportunity in 2012 to do Nashville and shake down Kyle's Late Model," Jones told Autoweek back in 2017. "Branden had a good relationship with Chris Gabehart and without running that test, Kyle probably wouldn't have thought as much of me after we won the Derby."

So, it was that combined success, both the test and his victory, that ultimately led to Jones' making five Camping World Truck Series starts for KBM, with the rookie driver winning the last of those appearances at Phoenix International Raceway -- a victory that caught the attention of Toyota Racing Development president and general manager David Wilson.

That triumph, combined with what came next, led to the actual defining moment of Jones’ young career -- one that took place in a luxury suite and not on the racetrack. It was a moment that also gave birth to a true driver development system.

Contrary to popular belief, Toyota doesn’t have piles of cash to invest in young drivers. Instead, it relies on business-to-business partnerships with entities such as SiriusXM, JBL and SafeLite to solidify its racing programs.

And Jones didn’t have the independent funding to make it to Cup without help either.

Wilson and Busch believed in Jones, but neither had the means to provide him a clear pathway to the Cup Series. It took some coordinating with coach Joe Gibbs.

By November 2013, it was clear to Wilson and Busch that they had a burgeoning superstar in their ranks. And keep in mind, this is just after Toyota had lost Kyle Larson to Chevrolet and Chip Ganassi Racing. Wilson has previously called that event a "wake-up call" and vowed not to lose another can’t-miss prospect simply because they hadn’t developed a clear ladder to Cup.

Wilson and (Jones attorney) Alan Miller met with Gibbs on the Saturday night of Championship Weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway with the hopes of selling the next big thing to his future team owner.

Gibbs recalled not being easily swayed.

"It took a lot," Gibbs said in victory lane at Daytona. "It took a lot of trust in Kyle and David and Ed (Laukes) -- everyone that spoke to his character and potential. There was a lot to consider back then as far as who we had in Xfinity and what Cup might look like. It took everyone coming together and telling me that Erik was someone to believe in."

With that conversation, suddenly Toyota was in the driver development business, something Wilson swore for years Toyota didn’t have the desire to do.

It meant that Wilson and his staff, spearheaded by Tyler Gibbs and Jack Irving, needed to begin the process of informally linking KBM, the Keith Kunz Motorsports midget team, the Venturini Motorsports ARCA squad and various other programs back to Gibbs.

It was an ambitious undertaking that Wilson never intended to start.

"I remember even saying that as recently as 2015," Wilson said. "But then, I started to step back and look at Toyota's NASCAR program 10 years from now. Our position was always that teams owned the rights to drivers. We're a manufacturer and we don't get involved in that.

"But then, we looked at our relationship with Keith and Kyle and Coach. We felt like it was appropriate to have an involvement. More importantly, we felt a responsibility to these younger drivers. And it started with Erik. With him, we kind of started to formalize the program and figure out how to push these drivers forward.

"So, I readily admit now that we are in the driver development business. We accept it as a matter of fact. We don't own driver contracts and never will, but we're going to work with younger drivers and we've embraced it as part of our culture."

Jones has essentially served as the prototype for all future Toyota development drivers, especially Christopher Bell, whom Wilson sees as a sort of second chance at developing Larson. While some of these younger drivers may move on to other teams and manufacturers, Bell is following in the tire tracks established by Toyota’s guinea pig, Jones.

"I think we've been pretty clear lately that we're not going to let Christopher get away," Wilson said. "He's got so much potential. We're convinced of that. We have a plan for him.

"I would tell you that every driver is different and develop at different rates, but with Christopher, we haven't found a level that he hasn't succeeded at yet. But at the same time, I don't think you can hurt someone by taking it slowly."

Toyota takes a great deal of pride in the fact that Jones was the first development driver to win in all three NASCAR national tours. It’s exactly the sort of dream fulfilled Wilson speaks of when waxing poetic about giving back to the industry at large.

The reality is that Jones’ family had enough funding to run a handful of Truck Series races that first season, but likely not with a championship-caliber team like KBM. Toyota was able to seek out a talented driver that didn’t have a tremendous amount of money and provided him the means to mature into a Cup Series championship contender.

"When I won the Snowball Derby in 2012, I was 16 years old, and I didn't have any opportunities in NASCAR at that point, so I kind of thought I was going to find something else to do pretty soon," Jones said.

"But I thought at that point I was going to get maybe some smaller opportunities for other teams, but that kind of changed everything for me, so really these last six years have flown by."

They’ve flown by for Toyota, too.

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