From the ashes of a 36th-place finish in the second NASCAR Cup Series race of the year at Atlanta Motor Speedway that nullified a strong ninth-place drive from the season-opening Daytona 500, Noah Gragson rose like a Phoenix last weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The driver of the No. 10 Ford Mustang Dark Horse for Stewart-Haas Racing scratched and clawed his way from 30th on the grid to finish an impressive sixth at the end of the 267-lap race. It was his first step out of the points hole that left him last in the championship standings after Atlanta. Gragson’s Las Vegas exploits allowed him to climb eight spots in points to 34th heading into this weekend’s Shriners Children’s 500k at Phoenix Raceway.
The Shriners Children’s 500k will serve as Gragson’s second career NASCAR Cup Series start at Phoenix. He finished 29th in his first Cup Series race at the desert mile last March during his rookie campaign with Legacy Motor Club.
The bulk of Gragson’s experience at Phoenix has come in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, the stepping-stone division to the elite NASCAR Cup Series. From 2019 through 2022, Gragson made eight career Xfinity Series starts at Phoenix and had only one finish outside the top-12. His five top-10s were punctuated by three top-two finishes, a mark highlighted by Gragson’s win in March 2022. It was a race he thoroughly dominated as Gragson started second and then led seven times for a race-high 114 laps, including the final 15 to beat runner-up Brandon Jones by 2.555 seconds.
Joining Gragson at Phoenix is SERVPRO, a leader in property cleanup, restoration and construction. For more than 50 years, SERVPRO has been a trusted leader in fire and water cleanup and restoration services, construction, mold mitigation, biohazard, and pathogen remediation. SERVPRO’s professional services network of more than 2,200 individually owned and operated franchises spans the United States and Canada, responding to property damage emergencies large and small – from million-square-foot commercial facilities to individual homes. When disaster strikes, homeowners, business owners and major insurance companies rely on SERVPRO to help make it “Like it never even happened.”
–Stewart-Haas Racing–
