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Photo by Dominic Aragon\/TRE<\/p>\nLAS VEGAS \u2014 Blackjack tournaments, golfing, Uber Eats, a wedding \u2014 and NASCAR racing, of course.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a NASCAR race weekend in Las Vegas in a nutshell for hometown boy Noah Gragson, who will make his sixth NASCAR Cup Series start at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Sunday\u2019s South Point 400. <\/p>\n
Photo by Dominic Aragon\/TRE<\/p>\n
The highlight of the weekend has been the off-track activities. While practice and qualifying were ho-hum, Gragson made it to a big event in his life while in town.<\/p>\n
\u201d I\u2019m gonna miss the post-practice debrief to go to a wedding.\u00a0It\u2019s a lot when I come out here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Gragson\u2019s weekend started as the week began. It has been busy for a multitude of other reasons than a typical week but still has consisted of the usual routine.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came out on Monday and landed mid-afternoon.\u00a0I caught up with some buddies and family and friends.\u00a0It\u2019s been kind of a different week for me out here,\u201d Gragson said.\u00a0\u201cMy grandpa had a brain bleed, so he went into the hospital.\u00a0That kind of sucked, but just spend time with buddies and do competition meeting over the phone, prepare like I would normally, work out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gragson has gone golfing with friends and, of course, received messages from friends wanting passes to get into the track.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a nice break from a season that has been somewhere in between what his first two seasons have had to offer. While he hasn\u2019t had the standout performances of the 2024 season, he has been cleaner than he was in 2023.<\/p>\n
Although he has managed to get multiple top-10 finishes for the second season in a row, he hasn\u2019t had any since the Coca-Cola 600 in May. He\u2019s still looking for his first career win \u2014 but isn\u2019t completely winless this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to pat myself on the back because it was my first win in three years.\u00a0I won last night, so that was pretty cool.\u00a0I beat Chase Briscoe,\u201d Gragson said.<\/p>\n
While Briscoe is one of eight drivers running for the championship, Gragson is on the bottom end of the standings as a long, 28-week grind is coming to an end. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a challenging year, just because we had some really good speed to start the year off for the first 12-15 races,\u201d Gragson said.\u00a0\u201cI\u2019d say in 2023, I wrecked a lot on my own and was probably driving over my head.\u00a0The results have sucked but we\u2019ve been collected in a lot of wrecks that are out of our own hands, which has been tough, but the speed was really good for the first half of the year and then we\u2019ve kind of been hit or miss the second half.\u00a0A little bit of that is when we go out to qualify and that just makes the weekend harder.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Courtesy of True Speed PR<\/p>\n
While Gragson doesn\u2019t have the best performance to show for his season, there is a mutual love between him and the fans that keeps him going. Although he may not be on the level of Chase Elliott, who has dominated the Most Popular Driver award since his 2016 foray into Cup, he has never missed a NASCAR All-Star Race \u2014 thanks to the fan vote.<\/p>\n
That is not a coincidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told myself when I was younger when I came out to my first race out here and thought, \u2018Man, how can I stay in this sport one day if I ever get to that level?\u2019\u00a0I want to be the guy who sells the most t-shirts.\u00a0That\u2019s what Dale Jr. did.\u00a0Danica stayed in the sport for a long time and was one of the most popular, so I always told myself that if I could be the guy that could sell the most t-shirts and have the biggest fan base, you\u2019re able to attract partners that way,\u201d Gragson said. <\/p>\n
Gragson is often seen signing autographs for extended periods of time, often no matter how things are going.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am a fan and I\u2019ve always told myself that if I want to make it in this sport, I may not be the best driver, but hopefully I could be a fan favorite too and that could help point me in the right direction,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Las Vegas is not only home but it\u2019s also the site of a comeback sixth-place finish in March 2024 for Gragson, who saw the previous season \u2014 and nearly his career \u2014 come crashing down.<\/p>\n
Trials and tribulations like those have prepared him for a season where the performance may not fully be there \u2014 but the opportunity is.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t lost faith.\u00a0We have good confidence.\u00a0I\u2019m confident to go out here this weekend.\u00a0This is one of my favorite tracks and\u2026 we\u2019re just trying to take it week by week is what we\u2019ve been doing,\u201d Gragson said.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Jonathan Fjeld is the co-owner of the The Racing Experts, LLC. He has been with TRE since 2010.<\/p>\n
A Twin Valley, MN, native, Fjeld became a motorsports fan at just three years old (first race was the 2002 Pennsylvania 500). He worked as a contributor and writer for TRE from 2010-18. Since then, he has stepped up and covered 24 NASCAR race weekends and taken on a larger role with TRE. He became the co-owner and managing editor in 2023 and has guided the site to massive growth in that time.<\/p>\n
Fjeld has covered a wide array of stories and moments over the years, including Kevin Harvick’s final Cup Series season, the first NASCAR national series disqualification in over 50 years, Shane van Gisbergen’s stunning win in Chicago and the first Cup Series race at Road America in 66 years \u2013 as well as up-and-coming drivers’ stories and stories from inside the sport, like the tech it takes for Hendrick Motorsports to remain a top-tier team.<\/p>\n
Currently, he resides in Albuquerque, N.M., where he works for KOB 4, an NBC station. He works as a digital producer and does on-air reports. He loves spending time with friends and family, playing and listening to music, exploring new places, being outdoors, reading books and writing among other activities. You can email him at fjeldjonathan@gmail.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2014 Blackjack tournaments, golfing, Uber Eats, a wedding \u2014 and NASCAR racing, of course. That\u2019s a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":297361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1444,39344,117115,1406,1459,85912,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-297360","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-1444","9":"tag-jonathan-fjeld","10":"tag-las-vegas-motor-speedway","11":"tag-nascar","12":"tag-nascar-cup-series","13":"tag-noah-gragson","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115361423800826936","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}