Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
South Point 400 Media Availability
Saturday, October 11, 2025
NOAH GRAGSON, No. 4 Rush Truck Centers Ford Mustang Dark Horse – CHASE ELLIOTT HAS WON THE MOST POPULAR DRIVER AWARD MULTIPLE TIMES, BUT DO YOU THINK THIS COULD BE YOUR YEAR? “I’d hope so, but I doubt it. I don’t know what the numbers look like as far as how much he wins by every year, but he’s got a pretty strong fan base that, at least a fan base that votes a lot. I’ve been fortunate enough to have a fan base that votes for me in the Truck Series and winning the most popular driver there, and then Xfinity Series, but I can’t accurately answer that question. I hope so, but if we’re going off the track record, he’s got everybody covered.”
WHAT IS YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY? “We try out best to keep things, like there’s different areas that we focus on with our social team. Instagram and Twitter, it’s more personal between myself and the fans and trying to keep the Instagram and the Twitter posts more raw, not so staged or choreographed. I feel like everybody just wants raw on Instagram. We’ve hired a full-time guy to do some You Tube videos. The fans have been excited over it, but definitely each platform is kind of its unique vibe in a sense, so we’ve been spending a little bit of time just thinking of different strategies to keep growing on those platforms, but at the end of the day, like if I had advice to anybody doing it, you’ve got to stay true to yourself and just be yourself. I’ll take a picture right now and put it into a collage from the weekend and we’ll do that. Everyone smile. I’ll put that in there and then you’ll be in there, but you just have to keep true to yourself and keep it natural, in my opinion. Everything is overproduced right now on Instagram. We need to bring it back to the old ways.”
WHAT IS A WEEKEND IN LAS VEGAS LIKE FOR YOU? “It’s busy, for sure. I came out on Monday and landed mid-afternoon. I caught up with some buddies and family and friends. It’s been kind of a different week for me out here. My grandpa had a brain bleed, so he went into the hospital. That kind of sucked, but just spend time with buddies and do competition meeting over the phone, prepare like I would normally, work out. All of that stuff is kind of the same, but I get to go to really good restaurants here in Las Vegas, see my family and friends, and then play a little golf. I did Brendan Gaughan’s celebrity blackjack tournament last night at the South Point, which I want to pat myself on the back because it was my first win in three years. I won last night, so that was pretty cool. I beat Chase Briscoe. It’s fun to be able to come out here and just a change of pace throughout the week. Thirty eight weeks of the same process throughout Monday-Friday, it’s good to change it up. Then we get to the racetrack and I practice and qualify today, and then I have to go to a wedding at four o’clock, so I’m gonna miss the post-practice debrief to go to a wedding. It’s a lot when I come out here. My texts are through the roof because everybody is wanting passes and stuff, but it’s a good problem to have.”
WHERE DO YOU FEEL YOU ARE PERSONALLY AND THIS 4 TEAM OVERALL RIGHT NOW? “It’s been a challenging year, just because we had some really good speed to start the year off for the first 12-15 races. I think we were running seventh here with 70-100 to go on a restart in the spring and Bubba and Blaney got into it and we got collected in a wreck on a restart, so we’ve had really good runs. That’s kind of been the story of the first half of the year and that’s put us in a hole to you go out early in qualifying and you’re low on points and it just compounds your weekends negatively and going into the next week, so that’s been a challenge trying to build a buffer and go out later in qualifying. I’d say in 2023 I wrecked a lot on my own and was probably driving over my head. The results have sucked, but we’ve 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’ve kind of been hit or miss the second half. A little bit of that is when we go out to qualify and that just makes the weekend harder. We haven’t lost faith. We have good confidence. I’m confident to go out here this weekend. This is one of my favorite tracks and try to hold it wide-open in qualifying and have a good starting position for the race tomorrow. We’re just trying to take it week by week is what we’ve been doing. We’ll see. We’ll try today in a couple of hours.”
YOU SIGN AUTOGRAPHS FOREVER AND INTERACT WITH YOUR FANS A LOT. DID YOU MODEL THAT AFTER SOMEONE? “I don’t want this to get taken out of context, but Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a really, really, really good race car driver, but might not have the resume of Jimmie Johnson or Jeff Gordon. He still won a lot of races in the Cup Series, which I’m nowhere near, but I told myself when I was younger when I came out to my first race out here and thought, ‘Man, how can I stay in this sport one day if I ever get to that level?’ I want to be the guy who sells the most t-shirts. That’s what Dale Jr. did. Danica 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’re able to attract partners that way. That’s why I really put out a strong effort and a lot of energy into the fans, just because I am a fan and I’ve 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. It’s been a crazy ride. It’s been a wild ride, but definitely very grateful for the fan support.”
TALLADEGA IS NEXT WEEK AND YOU WERE FOURTH IN THE SPRING THERE. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT? “I like Talladega a lot. We’ve had some good runs there and have put ourselves at least in position and contention the last four or five times I’ve run there. We got caught up in the fall race wreck on the backstretch last year when everybody got taken out, but you look at the spring of ‘23 at Talladega, we were up there. We got in a wreck with Chastain. We were leading on the green-white-checker restart next to Blaney, which was pretty cool, and then finished third there last year in the spring, was running good in the fall and then had another solid run this year. We hope to go there and rebound and have a good race and just trying to stack top 10 finishes, top five finishes. I mean, for a majority of the year we just wanted to finish races, but a solid day for us right now is about a top 15. A good day is a top 10 and a great day is a top five, so anything is possible. We’ve put ourselves in the top five or six cars coming into the late-race stages of the Talladega races in recent years, so I’m definitely looking forward to that.”
HOW IMPORTANT IS IT FOR THE NASCAR COMMUNITY TO HAVE A VIDEO GAME AND THAT THE DRIVERS AND TEAM PROMOTE IT? “I think the first thing is it’s important that we have a good game because we haven’t in the last 10 years, which sucks because I think all of us drivers currently in the series have grown up playing NASCAR video games when they’re really, really good. I know I would race a legend car right over here at the bullring and we’d get done with practice and have down time and set up a little TV and Zane Smith, Riley Herbst and myself would play NASCAR Inside Line together and have fun. We’re definitely gonna play this new NASCAR ‘25, the iRacing game because I got a little sneak peak and played it for a couple minutes and thought I was pretty good. I think it’s important that the product is good. I think the fan base will realize that and support it if the product is good. We haven’t really had that in the last 10 years, unfortunately, but I truly do believe that this year we have a good console game and everybody will enjoy it. It’ll be fun.”
WHEN YOU SEE THE RATINGS FOR A VIDEO GAME LIKE THAT WHAT IS THE FEELING? DO YOU THINK THEY’RE WRONG? IS IT INSULTING? “I don’t really care about that, it’s just you look at who is the best driver in our sport right now? Then why isn’t he 100 overall? It doesn’t really matter at the end of the day, but whoever the guy or girl was that did it, they did a bad job, in my opinion, but I personally don’t care if I’m a 71. I made a joke about it saying, ‘Oh, dang. I’m kind of trash. Is that me?’ I just don’t think the facts were really real on anybody’s stats, not even saying mine were low or high or anybody else’s was low or high, it just didn’t really make sense when we were doing it, but the rest of the game is really, really good.”
DO YOU WISH MORE DRIVERS SHOWED MORE OF THEIR PERSONAL LIVES ON SOCIAL MEDIA LIKE YOU DO? “I do. I think there’s a lot of good personalities that not a lot of people get to see because in the sense that drivers are handcuffed a little bit maybe with partners or with the sport and Ricky got fined $75,000 grand for probably one of the biggest highlights last year with Kyle Busch and he gets fined for it. It’s tough to really, I’m not saying we need to go fight and stuff, but I think everybody is just kind of scared that they just don’t want to say anything or do anything at all just so they don’t get in trouble. I don’t know. There’s obviously a limit to everything, but you get these guys away from the racetrack and they’re pretty funny guys. You would never think that. I’ve shared a lot of laughs with a lot of guys that I probably thought, ‘Hey, man. There’s no way this guy could be that fun to be around.’ There are some guys that are really, really fun. Everyone is kind of in their unique boat on how much they want to show the general public and what-not, but if it were up to me, everybody would just be outgoing and show them their true colors.”
WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO THOSE FELLOW DRIVERS THAT MIGHT BE IN THEIR SHELL AND HAVEN’T SHOWED OFF THEIR PERSONALITY? “Maybe they’re smarter than me. I don’t know. If it works for them, it works for them. I just try to be myself at the end of the day. I’m kind of loud, proud and drawing crowd and just trying to have as much fun as possible. I prepare and I work hard behind the scenes that not a lot of people see my work behind closed doors, but I think there’s a time and a place for everything. I feel like if you’re prepared throughout the week and you do your job throughout the week, when I get to the racetrack it’s like a test. If I’m going into a test and I didn’t study, I’m gonna be nervous, but if I studied for the test, I’m gonna be confident and it’s gonna be good. I feel like I take that same thing to the racetrack. I know where I need to run in practice. I know where I need to run in qualifying. I kind of adjust on the fly depending on how the car is handling, but when I get here to the racetrack I truly try to enjoy the moment.”
JOSH BERRY, No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WHAT IS IT LIKE COMING BACK HERE WITH ALL OF YOUR SUCCESS YOU’VE HAD? “It’s always fun coming back here, anywhere where you win and obviously get your first Cup win and have a couple really good Xfinity wins, so it’s always fun to come back here and race. I’m excited for the weekend and hopefully we can build off of what we did in the spring and have another solid run.”
HOW MUCH OF WHAT YOU DO NOW IS PREPARING FOR 2026 VERSUS BEING A SPOILER THE REST OF THIS YEAR? “We’re just going each and every week and trying to perform the best we can. We obviously want to do what we can to learn about our cars and help Ryan and Joey as much as we can through these last few races, but, for us, we just want to string together some solid runs and finish the season strong. The guys have been doing a really good job and we’re just trying to build some momentum for next year.”
NO ONE HAS EVER REPEATED SINCE VEGAS GOT TWO RACES A YEAR. WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO DO TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN? “I think it’ll be similar to the spring. We just need to have a strong car and execute all day and have the right strategy and just find ourselves in position. It’s gonna be tough. Everybody is obviously bringing their best this weekend for sure to try to find their way to Phoenix. It’s gonna be a challenge but, like I said, if we just do what we did in the spring and have a solid car and good pit stops, hopefully we can give ourselves a shot.”
WHERE DO YOU LAND ON THE HORSEPOWER INCREASE? “I think it’s a step in the right direction. I’m sure everybody would like to have more, but you look last week with the amount of tire fall off we had that little bit more horsepower is probably, I think we’re finding our way with all of that. If we continue down the road of the tires wearing out, a little bit more horsepower, I think all of that stuff is directional. If we keep having the tire fall off and stuff like we’ve been seeing from time to time, then we probably aren’t gonna need 1000 horsepower to make better racing.”
IS THERE A POINT WHERE THERE COULD BE TOO MUCH TIRE FALL OFF? “I’m sure there is a point, for sure, but it still opens up the strategy so much. You saw last week watching the end of that race and all the different strategies – three stop, two stop. You take Darlington, for example, with how they split up the runs or have an even split, just having the fall off opens up all that stuff a lot more to where there’s not just one strategy. I think either way it’s still the right direction.”
WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW INSIDE THE CAR IN TERMS OF WHERE GUYS ARE IN POINTS AND HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF NASCAR RESTRICTED THAT? “That’s a tough question to answer. It seems like there’s a line, although it’s a squiggly line I guess. I feel like we should know the point situation. I think there’s too much on the line. I guess everybody can have a different opinion of that. For someone like me, if you line up for a late-race restart or at a race like last week where there’s all this chaos. It’s nice to know what’s going on around you before you weigh the risk of the moves you make. Long story short, I feel like if we get to a point where we can’t talk about the points at all, then we might as well just punt and have a different system.”
WHY DO YOU SAY THAT BECAUSE THERE’S ANOTHER SIDE THAT SAYS IT COULD HAVE AN EFFECT ON THE RACE INTEGRITY? “I agree. It’s a hard question to answer because it could easily be interpreted as laying over or not in different situations, but, for me personally, I just like to know. It goes both ways. Obviously, people can think you lay over, but if you miss the corner and slide into Ross and knock him out of the playoffs, then everybody on the internet is gonna be the other way against you, so I just feel like it’s good to have an idea of what you’re going up against and how desperate someone is gonna be or not. I think, to me, that’s where you draw the line. If you just let the driver know what the situation is and let them decide what they want to do, I mean that’s what we get paid to do. I think just explaining the points, maybe, if you’re in that situation it’s a little different than being told to save your tires or whatever.”
HOW MUCH OF THE SETUP FOR THIS RACE IS SIMILAR FROM THE SPRING? “It’s similar, but there are some changes. We’re on a different tire that we ran at Kansas and a couple times before that, so it’s a little bit different tire, so we’re trying to take what we learned there and apply that to here the best we can. Obviously, the weather is different too, but I would say it’s fairly similar, but we’ve tried to adjust for the tire and the weather and hopefully we get it right.”
