The 2017 season got off to a rocky start for the sensational Kyle Busch Motorsports rookie. Gragson did not even get to complete a lap before he was involved in the infamous “big one” at Daytona International Speedway. Not a good way to start your rookie season. It took Gragson a little bit to get used to the truck, but at the paperclip in Martinsville, he collected a top five finish when finishing fourth. Keep Martinsville in the back of your minds because that will come up later.
After not finishing the Kansas race due to clutch problems, Noah finished inside the top ten six times and once in the top five until Pocono, where he was involved in a crash that took him out of the race on lap 39 thus ending his consecutive streak of finishing inside the top ten.
“I made a mistake at the end of the first stage that set us behind and kind of hurt us from there on,”Gragson said. “I slid through the box on my pit stop and got a lap down, and then just had to battle back in the second stage. I got the free pass and was passing trucks in the third stage and went off into turn one, but I didn’t know we were three-wide. The spotter called me three-wide super late and I came down the race track, got hit and pounded the wall pretty hard with my Switch Tundra.”
Despite getting taken out of the Pocono race, he rebounded and finished inside the top ten once more at Michigan collecting a seventh place. Gragson’s season moment shined at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, where he started sixth and finished second. It would be his best career finish up to that point of the season.
When the playoffs started, Gragson missed championship hunt by just a few points but that did not mean he couldn’t compete for wins. On a fall day in Martinsville, the second race of the season, he took the lead on a late race restart and held off veteran Matt Crafton for his first ever career series win.
“All the hard work finally paid off. I’ve had the monkey on my back this whole year,” he said. “I’ve been asked pretty much every day when are you going to get that win? When are we going to put up a banner at Kyle Busch Motorsports? I’m just thankful for everyone who has brought me up through the ranks racing. I’m so very thankful.”
At Homestead, the Las Vegas, Nevada driver wound up finishing 18th in the final race of the year.
“That was a disappointing way to end the season,” Gragson said. “Our Switch Tundra started out really loose in the first stage, but we kept working on it during every pit stop. I thought by the final stage we’d have a really competitive truck, but a flat tire took us out of contention. I don’t know if I ran over something, or what, but it certainly wasn’t how any of us wanted to end our season.”
When the 2017 season was over, Gragson would collect one win, four top fives and 13 top ten finishes, with an average start 6.7 and an average finish of 11.6, including four DNF’s, 187 laps led and three career poles.
You can follow Noah’s interesting adventures on Twitter @NoahGragson and on Instagram @NoahGragson.
