‘I don’t know if I’m doing it right or wrong,’ but NASCAR’s Noah Gragson just wants to entertain
Mia Lopez SAN ANTONIO — Sponsor requests can be odd and uncomfortable for NASCAR drivers, but they can’t faze Noah Gragson. He’s game for anything.
That’s the case on this pleasant, late spring day in Texas, where Gragson is making an appearance at Black Rifle Coffee Company’s first fully-owned-and-operated coffee shop.
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Ask him to chug milk for a social media photo, even though that’s what Indy 500 winners do and not NASCAR drivers? He doesn’t particularly care for milk, but sure, he’ll do it.
Throw him into a barista challenge where the 23-year-old goes up against the store’s fastest espresso shot maker? He’s all in, getting whooped with a smile on his face.
Take him out to Black Rifle’s content ranch and put him on a podcast titled “Who the F*CK is Noah Gragson?” where he gets asked the most basic of questions about NASCAR? Yeah, no problem.
But a few minutes after the podcast, when Gragson is sitting by a pool at the ranch, perched on a vista overlooking Texas Hill Country, he has a chance to dive deeper.
Birds chirp and a fountain trickles in the background. Gragson squints, staring at an undefined object.
Who the f*ck is Noah Gragson, as the podcast asked?
“I’m still trying to figure that out,” he says. “I’m kind of lost as a person. Like I’m on the start of the right path, but then you’re thinking, am I really on the right trail right now — or did I miss a turn?”
You can find any number of guesses and projections and assumptions about Gragson on social media, where he is adored and reviled. But the real Gragson? The guy behind moments both entertaining and controversial? Hell if he knows.
“I don’t know if I’m doing it right or wrong or if this is correct,” Gragson says, making eye contact now. “When you get older, do you still not really know what you’re doing? Or do you have a better understanding of how your life is going to play out?”
These are normal questions for any young person. But Gragson is trying to figure out the answers while everyone is watching.
A day after a rather lengthy conversation at Black Rifle’s ranch, Gragson sends a text message asking if there’s more time to speak.
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He has more to say, even though he’s now 70 miles north of San Antonio, at that week’s race track.
Gragson seeks a quiet place to chat at Austin’s Circuit of The Americas, so he walks along the stone-lined suites terrace until he spots a large, vacant hospitality area with two bartenders inside, closing up for the day.
He knocks on the window and one opens the door.
“Hi, I’m in the Xfinity Series race here tomorrow and I’m doing an interview,” he says. “Can we come in?”
Gragson mutes some nearby speakers blasting the Rush song “Yyz” and plops onto a plush, white couch. He gestures out the window at the fan midway area across from the infield and shakes his head.
“What’s most fucked is the garage should be in that parking lot right out there,” he says.“Everybody should be able to go up to the car and everybody should be able to talk to the drivers. The fans want to see the drivers. That’s what they’re here for. If it were up to me, I would love to meet every single person who is at this race right now.”
When it’s noted many drivers don’t want to have that much interaction with fans, Gragson is defiant.
“Then they’re the assholes!” he says. “And they’re not going to gain any new fans. Meanwhile, the guys who are sitting outside their hauler are going to sell T-shirts and become more popular. And a fan is going to tell their buddy back in their hometown in Oklahoma: ‘Hey, I just met this dude and we had a conversation.’”
That mentality is all part of the long game for Gragson, who has a one-fan-at-a-time approach to growing his brand. He closely tracks his social media metrics and even makes sure to comment on others’ Instagram posts, knowing as a verified account, he’s likely to show up as one of the two featured comments under someone’s caption.
But most of all, he wants to make connections. The more people he knows, the better off he’ll be in the future.
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“My generation is getting done with college and going into the work life now,” he says. “I want to be their NASCAR guy. Then, maybe five years down the road when they get promoted or they’re starting their own company and it’s successful, they’re like, ‘Hey, we want to support this guy.’”
But that doesn’t mean his actions are inauthentic. Gragson’s friends say he’s been the first to show up when someone in their circle has a flat tire or runs out of gas on the highway.
“With what he’s been through the last two years, he’s built up a harder shell and had to put on a little bit of a mask,” says close friend Christian Espinoza. “But that’s more about not letting people who aren’t close to him see how the stress and the hardships have affected him. Inside, despite all he’s been through, he’s stayed true to himself.”
And that brings us to the elephant in the room.
Here are the facts: On May 30, 2019, Noah’s father, Scott Gragson, consumed alcohol for approximately five hours at a charity golf event. He later drove his SUV into a row of trees while drunk, killing passenger Melissa Newton and seriously injuring two other passengers who were in his vehicle (one of whom suffered a traumatic brain injury).
Scott pled guilty to one count of DUI resulting in death and one count of DUI resulting in substantial bodily harm. He received a sentence of eight to 20 years in prison, which he began serving last summer.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported a lawsuit settlement of $21 million to the family of Newton, who was a mother of three.
There are no winners in an incident like that, only victims. And though Noah is low on the list compared to those who lost a family member and friend, he suffered as well.
His dad, a prominent presence in Noah’s life and racing career, suddenly wasn’t available to give guidance to his strong-willed son. And because of the Gragson family’s prominence in Vegas — Noah’s grandfather and father both found success in the city’s booming real estate business — the case was covered extensively by local media. Some of the social media vile directed toward Noah was unspeakable.
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It’s all led Noah to develop what his mother Jill calls “rhinoceros skin.”
“This isn’t the way I want my kids to learn resilience, but they’re learning it,” she says. “You don’t wake up one day and have thick skin. You become desensitized when people say and do things you cannot control.”
Scott’s imprisonment has left a hole in Noah’s life at a sensitive time in his development. Though Scott can keep up with Noah’s results, he can’t offer the sort of day-to-day feedback he normally would — which means the family’s circle of friends have stepped up to try to fill the void.
“Noah has that village that surrounds us,” Jill says. “There are people who can give him advice or know how Scott would feel about something if he can’t immediately talk to Scott.
“It’s not an easy situation, but we’re trying to do the best we can.”
Brandon McReynolds, who Noah says is the “top of the pyramid,” is perhaps the most influential figure in Gragson’s life these days. A longtime friend and former racer who became Noah’s manager, McReynolds has been unofficially assigned with looking after the younger driver since Gragson moved from Las Vegas to live with him in North Carolina as a teenager.
“Noah has handled that situation as best as anyone could, especially at 23 years old,” says McReynolds.
But that also means Scott’s absence leaves Noah with one less person to make sure this Energizer Bunny personality stays pointed in the right direction.
“He’s very passionate about entertaining the fans and he views that as his job,” says Jill. “Sometimes he may be on the extreme side, but that’s also who he is. What you see is what you get.
“He’s funny. He does crazy things at home. He drives us all crazy sometimes. But he’s been through a few things people would be shocked at. It hasn’t been a cakewalk for him.”
Noah enjoyed a privileged upbringing, to be sure. In addition to the real estate success of his grandfather and father, his great grandfather, Oran, was the longest-serving mayor of Las Vegas. But Noah struggled immensely in school due to a combination of dyslexia and a learning disability.
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“I wasn’t good at reading, so being called on was my worst nightmare,” he says. “I’d look like a dipshit in front of the whole class.”
Gragson’s friends would poke fun at him for not being able to read well. He was held back in third grade and later switched schools to see if that would spark a change.
Naturally, he came to loathe school and everything about it. And he decided the best way to counteract his humiliation was to act out.
So Gragson became a class clown/jokester/prankster, trying to do anything but the schoolwork. That caused even more tension at home, since Jill, a former teacher, expected her kids to take their education seriously.
“I was always looking for attention,” he says. “Whether it was giving my mom a hard time or messing with my (twin) sister or doing something in class, I always wanted to be in the spotlight.”
Gragson clashed so much with his parents and teachers that by the end of sixth grade, a decision was made: He would be sent to the Army and Navy Academy, an all-boys military boarding school in Carlsbad, Calif.
“My mom was just like, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’” Gragson says.
At the time, Gragson felt abandoned and angry after being dropped off in Carlsbad (30 miles north of San Diego) and not allowed to return home. But looking back now, he says “it was 100 percent the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
There were two options at military school: Gragson could either follow the rules and earn merits that came with privileges — or be disruptive and get demerits, which would require punishment.
During one such disciplinary measure, Gragson had to march in a square in the center of campus, wearing wool pants, a long-sleeved, button-down uniform shirt, a hat, tie and dress shoes. And as the sweat dripped, he realized he had only himself to blame.
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“It taught you, ‘Hey, you can either be a dumbass and get more of these demerits, or just follow directions,’” he says.
At military school, he started out with nothing except for clothes from the student store and his bed. Gragson had to work for his freedom, which he says showed the value of earning things rather than just being handed a freebie.
But it unintentionally taught him another life skill as well: Working the system. Gragson realized if he befriended some of the older kids and did things like use his merits to fetch them a burrito from town, they’d overlook some rules violations.
For example: Gragson snuck in an Xbox and hid it in a cardboard box with holes poked in it for ventilation.
“They’d walk by and not say anything, because they’re cool with you,” Gragson says. “You learned how to make deals. But that’s life. You have to know how to work the system in life.”
Gragson did well enough in Carlsbad that at the end of his seventh grade year his parents allowed him to start traveling back and forth from Carlsbad to Las Vegas on weekends so he could race Legend cars — a starter level of auto racing.
And after two years, his parents gave him the option to return home for high school.
“I still had my friends back in Vegas, and there were girls there, and I could race more,” he says.
So he came home for his freshman year of high school and started racing in the K&N West Series by his sophomore year.
But the very things he’d returned home to enjoy — his buddies, the opposite sex and racing — proved to be massive distractions. His motivation for school plummeted, he started cheating on every test he could and ran afoul of the leadership at his Catholic school while he missed classes to go race.
Teachers weren’t sympathetic to his frequent absences on Fridays — even though they made accommodations for football players from the school’s highly ranked team.
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“It was like, ‘Whoa, I’m racing — I’m playing sports, too,’” Gragson says of his argument to be treated similarly. “They said, ‘Yeah, but you’re never gonna make a career out of racing.’”
The tipping point for his high school days came when Gragson returned from a race in Virginia. Exhausted and not feeling well, he also was nursing a broken hand after it had gotten caught in the wheel during a crash.
At Monday morning Mass in the school gym, Gragson leaned his head on his arm to rest while listening to the service. Shortly afterward, he was called to the principal’s office, accused of sleeping through Mass and informed he’d be getting detention.
Jill, who previously told school officials to keep Noah in the dean’s office to teach her disruptive son a lesson, stuck up for him this time. By then, it was clear Catholic school just wasn’t a good fit, and he was pulled out to be home-schooled for his junior and senior years.
That turned out to be a blessing because it freed Gragson to do more racing. And without racing, Gragson’s story would have been much different.
Gragson is fond of the expression “No Bad Days,” and it’s not just a hollow phrase in his life.
Sometime during his sophomore year, during his struggles with school, Gragson was lying in bed at home in Las Vegas and couldn’t stop thinking about racing.
As he stared at the hero cards of NASCAR drivers stuck to his wall, he realized how overwhelmingly grateful he was for the chance to drive race cars.
“I was like, ‘Holy shit, this is what I’ve dreamed about doing,’” he says. “It’s like, ‘How could you complain? This is paradise. You could have a bad race, but who cares? It’s better than sitting in the grandstands.’”
While there’s no question Gragson got his opportunities because of his family’s money, it’s what he did with the chance that impressed those around him.
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When Gragson was 14, he wanted to move from the beginner-level Bandolero cars to Legends, so the family got in touch with car owner Dustin Ash, who fielded anywhere from four to 10 Legends cars per weekend.
Ash recalls Gragson’s learning curve being slower than some of the other drivers he had at the time, including Gragson’s current NASCAR colleagues Riley Herbst and Zane Smith. But Ash noticed Gragson asking the right questions and listening well, and after a year, things suddenly clicked.
“In all my years of doing this, he is probably the most humble person I’ve ever met,” says Ash, whom Gragson still calls weekly for conversations and advice. “He’s matured a lot since he was a teenager in a lot of ways, but at the end of the day, he’s still Noah.
“He’s one of those people where you meet him and either really like him or you don’t. That has never changed with him.”
His next team — and new teammate — weren’t quite sure what to think of Gragson when he moved from Ash’s cars to the K&N West Series.
Ash had recommended Gragson to the newly formed Jefferson Pitts Racing and the team was interested in taking on a pay driver as it began its program.
“At first, your reaction is, ‘OK, it’s a funded kid — how is this going to work?’” says Jason Jefferson, brother of JPR co-owner Jeff Jefferson. “There’s funded drivers who say they’re trying to do it — but Noah learned and got it. All of us were surprised when he got in the car that he was a race car driver.”
Gracin Raz, who jokes he’s known Gragson “since I was more popular in the racing world than him,” was driving for JPR when he was told at a race in Tucson that Gragson would be his new teammate.
“I walked into the trailer and he was already talking to my family,” Raz says. “He was just so outgoing, which was something I wasn’t used to. We were polar opposites the way we conducted ourselves, but we just hit it off right away.”
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They became inseparable as they raced together, giving Raz a front-row seat to Gragson’s development. They would watch NASCAR races on the couch and Gragson would make comments to Raz about which drivers gave good interviews and which didn’t.
As it turns out, Gragson needed all the inspiration he could get. After finishing third at his K&N West debut in 2015, Gragson gave what he felt was a mortifying interview. He stared straight into the camera and spoke awkwardly enough that even play-by-play announcer Rick Allen joked about it on air.
“It was atrocious,” Raz says with a laugh. “It’s comical to see where he is now compared to that. He paid attention to other interviews as a fan and incorporated that into his craft.”
Gragson did more than that. He was so embarrassed about his first interview that he sought out Dan Lier, a motivational speaker in Las Vegas, for coaching sessions on how to become more comfortable.
On the track, Gragson was already showing raw speed, but it also resulted in a clash with Raz. At the 2016 Winter Showdown late model race, which paid $30,000 to win, Gragson drove over his head and wrecked Raz while his teammate was in second place.
Raz climbed out of his car and stood on the track, angrily throwing his hands in the air as Gragson passed by.
“I went up to him afterward and I was so mad, but what caught me off guard was the emotion he had,” Raz says. “I could see in his eyes how sincerely sorry he was and how upset he was about what happened.
“I left the conversation feeling bad for even being mad at him. We came in as friends and left as friends.”
As NASCAR fans know, Gragson’s reputation for hard racing against teammates has never left him through the years. But another trait that can be traced back to his early days: Expressing gratitude.
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“He was in the grind and in the trenches along with the rest of us,” Jefferson says. “He was involved, thankful and gave us 100 percent.”
That gratitude, Jefferson says, has never ceased. He was stunned in February when, as Gragson was on pit road about to attempt to qualify for the Daytona 500, the driver sent a group text to 10 of his closest supporters.
Jefferson says the text essentially read: The reason I’m getting to do this is because of everybody that’s helped me along the way. I wouldn’t be here without you. Although Gragson ultimately failed to make the 500, the gesture still left a major impression.
“That was unbelievable,” Jefferson says. “He’s about to do the biggest thing he’s ever done, and he’s thinking of us.
“I get goosebumps thinking about it. All the nights and all the crap we did of the frickin’ grind to run him in both K&N East and West, knowing he was grateful made it worth it.”
To Gragson, the K&N Series might as well have been the NASCAR Cup Series. Just being in the races felt like a massive deal to him, and he was nervous because of his limited experience in stock cars.
He didn’t have to wait long to find out if he was any good. Gragson won in just his third K&N West start, leading a 1-2-3 finish for Jefferson Pitts, crossing the line just ahead of Raz and Ash.
It didn’t always go smoothly though, and one of the drivers Gragson collided with that year was McReynolds, son of former crew chief Larry McReynolds and himself an aspiring NASCAR driver at the time.
McReynolds was pissed at Gragson after a couple run-ins, but he was 23 and couldn’t go punch a 16-year-old in the face. So he got Gragson’s number and dialed him up instead.
“Look man, we’ve had our run-ins and I hate that,” McReynolds told him. “But I wanted to call and clear the air, because we need to stop running into one another.”
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Gragson had the conversation on speakerphone, and his parents heard it. Scott Gragson was impressed enough that when McReynolds lost his K&N ride to Todd Gilliland, Scott went to Jefferson Pitts with a proposal: McReynolds would spend the year as Noah’s spotter and driver coach.
That evolved into the Gragsons asking McReynolds advice on Noah’s career, and McReynolds eventually took on more responsibilities, becoming Gragson’s manager.
Gragson signed with Kyle Busch Motorsports to start the 2017 Truck Series season and moved from Las Vegas to stay at McReynolds’ house in Huntersville, N.C.
But, as has been well-documented, Gragson’s experience at KBM didn’t go as expected.
Gragson won just two Truck Series races in his two full-time seasons for the top-tier team, failing to capitalize on his trucks’ speed. He won nine pole positions and led more than 800 laps, but finished off the lead lap more times (13) than he had top-five finishes (12).
“There’s so much pressure and you see all those banners and you know you’ve got the stuff to do it,” Gragson says. “You say, ‘William Byron won seven races in those Trucks. I can do it.’ But fuck no, it’s hard.
“And then you’re trying to prove yourself, so you’re racing at 115 percent and you start wrecking every week. You’re still trying to figure it out, you don’t know the questions you’re supposed to be asking and you’re getting your ass kicked by your teammate (Christopher Bell) who has been in it for two years.”
KBM was more of a tough-love, fend-for-yourself atmosphere than the environments Gragson was used to with Ash and Jefferson Pitts. He never felt comfortable at KBM and says he couldn’t be himself.
“I’m appreciative of everybody’s hard work over there, but it just wasn’t for me,” he says. “Everything was so cutthroat. I just wasn’t mature enough for it. Every day, you get asked by people, ‘When are you going to win?’ And by that time you can’t even make a lap because you’re trying to push the car to what it’s not capable of.”
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But there was a silver lining that season: Gragson’s three Xfinity Series starts for Joe Gibbs Racing. He had an average finish of 4.3 in his first three career races in the series, and Gragson says Gibbs was impressed enough to offer a full-time Xfinity ride.
The deal ended up fizzling out (“Things weren’t right financially with what they wanted and what we thought we could get,” Gragson says), but it was clear Xfinity would be a reasonable next step despite his lack of Truck success.
That led Gragson to JR Motorsports, which immediately struck him as the family environment he craved to be successful.
“For the first time since Jefferson Pitts, I wasn’t just a number,” Gragson says. “I wasn’t going to get lost in the shuffle. They cared about me and they believed in me.”
Gragson had found his home. But at age 20, he still had plenty of growing up to do.
Before we go any further, let’s acknowledge Gragson is not well-liked by a sizable portion of the NASCAR fan base. He’s drawn ire on social media for distasteful conduct toward women, such as kissing a hesitant Snowball Derby queen in victory lane and recording himself on Snapchat whistling at a woman on the street two years ago.
Gragson doesn’t dispute he’s done inappropriate things at times and crossed the line of good taste in other instances.
“I’ve done a lot of dumb shit,” he says.
In general, Gragson says his missteps have occurred while trying to be an entertaining personality, but miscalculating — sometimes badly.
“I’m teetering on the edge and every once in a while I go over,” he says. “But if I don’t get close to the edge, then people say you’re not interesting and robotic.
“Nine of 10 people might like something, but one person gets upset. Then I get told: ‘You’re killing it on Twitter. You’re doing everything great. But you can’t do that anymore.’ Like, what? I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
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Jill says she hopes her son will become more aware of his gaffes as he gets older.
“When you make mistakes, you say ‘I’m sorry’ and you don’t repeat them again,” she says. “Things happen. People say things. Hopefully he’ll find the balance. But there are adults who are 70 years old and haven’t found that balance yet.”
This was supposed to be Gragson’s breakthrough year on the racetrack, but until recently it had been more disappointing than anything.
While leading in the final turn at Homestead-Miami Speedway, the third race of the season, Gragson got taken out by the lapped car of David Starr, who blew a tire and crashed into him.
Gragson was both crushed and furious, but his criticism of Starr backfired and turned the court of public opinion against him.
Two weeks later, the outcry grew louder when Noah backed into Daniel Hemric’s car on pit road while sticking his middle finger out the window, then belittled Hemric’s driving ability and got in a fistfight on pit road.
The months went on and on, with Gragson going winless and seeing his average finish decline by six positions compared to 2020. He was ranked 11th in the point standings as recently as early June.
Meanwhile, questions about his 2022 plans swirled. Would he try to take the leap to Cup Series racing? Stick with Xfinity and hope for better results?
On Aug. 31, JRM announced it had re-signed Gragson for a fourth season of Xfinity racing in 2022. Not the typical timeline for a young driver, but one McReynolds viewed as the best option.
“We have such a great chemistry and flow with JR Motorsports,” McReynolds says. “JRM is family to Noah, and that’s important. And Noah wanted to make sure whatever he did was meaningful and had a chance of success.
“Looking at the Cup landscape, my gut told me if you don’t know what to do, don’t do anything.”
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With his immediate future resolved, Gragson suddenly had a breakthrough: wins at both Darlington and Richmond, which left team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr. marveling.
“I was saying to myself, ‘Man, what’s going on with this kid?’” Earnhardt says. “You’ve got no answers, right? And then he just starts winning. Boy, it makes a difference. You win, it fixes all the problems — his attitude, his personality, it sure needed all this.
“He might be dangerous with a little confidence, right? He’s kind of clueless and wondering where the hell the speed has been all year long. And now here he is. It’s cool to see how he can sustain.”
This week, Gragson begins the playoffs as the No. 4 seed and in a fitting place: his home track of Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Saturday’s race marks the first of seven events to see if his late-season momentum can turn into a NASCAR championship.
Whatever happens next, Gragson views it as just the beginning.
(Photo illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic. Photos: Jared C. Tilton, Sean Gardner / Getty Images)
