Noah Gragson Faster Than Expected Despite Minimal Sonoma Experience
6 months agoAlthough Noah Gragson has never won a road course race at a higher level than the ARCA East Series, he has performed unexpectedly well at Sonoma this weekend. He ranked seventh-fastest in practice and led all four Stewart-Haas cars in qualifying with a 19th-place starting position. Gragson has never started a race at Sonoma in any national series because he missed last year's Cup Series race due to concussion-like symptoms at Gateway, but he did race in the ARCA Series West race there two days ago, where he started sixth and led six laps before falling to 16th after spinning out on the overtime restart. Although there is little in Gragson's record to suggest he might run well in the Cup Series race, he has been outperforming expectations for most of this year and he has this weekend already. Don't be shocked if he factors for a top-10 finish.
Source: Racing Reference
Source: Racing Reference