Noah Gragson may carry the No. 4 on the side of his Front Row Motorsports Ford Mustang Dark Horse in the NASCAR Cup Series, but right now the number that is most important to the Las Vegas native is “one.”
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Gragson needs to win just one race to qualify for the Cup Series playoffs. It won’t be easy, though. With nine races left in the regular season, and with him currently 32nd in the point standings, it’s unlikely Gragson can reach the 16-driver playoffs based on points alone.
He comes into Saturday night’s race at the newly rechristened EchoPark Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway) 109 points below the playoff cutline (currently Josh Berry in 16th place). That’s why Gragson’s mindset for Atlanta is simple: win and you’re in.
Gragson has just one top-five and three top-10 finishes this season. After finishing 10th in the Coca-Cola 600, Gragson has had a rough go of it in the last four races at Nashville, Michigan, Mexico City and Pocono, finishing no higher than 23rd.
However, he’s optimistic that Atlanta will be a place he can make some noise. EchoPark is a 1.54-mile quad-oval intermediate speedway — some even call it a shorter, equally challenging track as Daytona and Talladega. The latter has Gragson feeling good, as his best finish thus far this season has been fourth at ‘Dega.
“Atlanta’s a fun track,” Gragson exclusively told The SportsRush. “It’s fast, a tough, challenging place, but I’m super excited and hope we can keep things running just clean and smooth, get through the day and have a good race.”
Now in his second full-time Cup season, Gragson is in his first season with Front Row Motorsports (FRM) after spending last season with Stewart-Haas Racing, which closed its doors after the season.
Atlanta has been a challenge for Gragson
Atlanta has not been very hospitable to Gragson in the Cup Series. In seven starts there, he’s only finished two races, with a best showing of 12th when he drove for Legacy Motor Club in 2023. Five other starts ended early in either crashes or mechanical failure.
But he’s done much better at the track nicknamed “Hotlanta” in NASCAR’s other two series. In six starts there in the Xfinity Series, he has one runner-up finish and two poles, as well as five top-10 finishes. In two starts in the Truck Series, his best finish there was runner-up in 2018.
“I was super good at the old Atlanta,” Gragson said. “The new Atlanta, I don’t know, you’ve just gotta have a clean day. We’re all superspeedway pack racing and I’ve just gotten collected in different wrecks throughout the years, other people’s wrecks.
“It’s a fast, technical, challenging racetrack, and you’ve gotta put yourself in good position and have a good handling car. We’ve been fast, we’ve run up in the top 10 in multiple races there, we just unfortunately haven’t got the finishes.
“I hope to have a smooth and clean race this year, just to be able to get through that and really just stack a good race, just get a good race under our belts there.”
If there was a place to start turning his season around, it would be at Atlanta. Although it will be the ninth remaining race in the regular season, it also will be the halfway point of the entire 36-race season.
“It’s really important that we go to the racetrack each and every week and show up and prepare to hopefully have an opportunity to win the race,” Gragson said. “And that’s what we go to Atlanta to do.”
If at first you don’t succeed…
If the EchoPark Speedway jinx continues to confound Gragson on Saturday night, he’ll still have eight more races to hopefully pull out a surprise upset win that would allow him to qualify for the Cup playoffs for the first time in his career.
He’s not a stranger to playoff competition. He made the Xfinity Series playoffs in each of his four full-time seasons, including finishing second in 2022 — earning a series-high eight wins and 21 top-fives (the most of any other driver in all three NASCAR series), as well as 26 top-10 finishes, marking his overall career best year — and third in 2021. He also made the Truck Series playoffs twice, including finishing the 2018 season second.
Earlier this year in the second race of the season, at Atlanta, Gragson was running mid-pack and got caught up in a wreck on Lap 184 of the 266-lap event, ending his day early with a disappointing 34th place finish.
“We’ve had a lot of really good runs and really good speed,” Gragson said. “I’ve been in the top-15, top-10 a lot of times and have got collected into wrecks caused by other drivers, just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“The results show that we’re having a bad season, but the speed that we have, we’re having a good season. I’ve been in like 11 races with damage from getting in wrecks. I feel like we’ll eventually turn around. We just can’t catch a break. It’s been pretty frustrating, extremely frustrating.”
Gragson hopes to make a good impression for new sponsor
Gragson hopes to have added luck on his side this weekend with new sponsorship from Atlanta-based Zep, a producer of all-purpose cleaners, degreasers, disinfectants and vehicle care products.
Zep will be on Gragson’s car for this weekend as well as August 23rd at Daytona International Speedway. In addition, the company will be an associate sponsor for all five Front Row Motorsports vehicles for the remainder of the season.
“I’m super excited to have Zep on the car,” Gragson said. “But it’s more than just on the car. We utilize Zep products in the shop every day and in our personal lives. It’s great to have them on the car.”
