NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Overview
Event: NCWTS 200, Race 3 of 23, 134 Laps – 40/40/54; 200.2 Miles
Location: Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway (1.5-mile oval)
Date/Broadcast: March 2, 2018 at 9 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1, MRN and Sirius/XM NASCAR 90
What You Need to ‘Noah’bout
- This week’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series event will be a homecoming for Las Vegas native Noah Gragson. Gragson cut his racing teeth on the same grounds as Kyle Busch Motorsports’ (KBM) owner Kyle Busch, getting his start at the age of 13 in the Bandoleros division at The Bullring – a 0.375-mile paved oval at Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway. After finding success in the Bandoleros, Gragson moved up to the Legends division in 2014 where he won the Young Lion Road Course championship and also began racing in the Super Late Model division at the Nevada track.
- The 19-year-old driver has several activities scheduled in his hometown before he hits the track Thursday. Tuesday at 4 p.m. PST Gragson will attend a cookout for over 100 kids at the Boys and Girls Club of South Nevada’s location at James Clubhouse (2530 E. Carey Avenue, North Las Vegas, NV 89030) hosted by his primary sponsor, Safelite AutoGlass. Gragson will then attend the Las Vegas Golden Knights game at T-Mobile arena Tuesday at 7 p.m. PST, where he will sound the siren to begin one of the periods. Wednesday he will tour the Las Vegas headquarters of Switch, his associate sponsor, and then attend a pep rally from 5:30 – 8:30 p.m. PST at Toshiba Plaza, located in front of T-Mobile arena. Stars from NASCAR, USA Sevens Rugby, the Vegas Golden Knights and UFC will join community leaders, mascots and more to celebrate one of Las Vegas’ biggest sports weekends.
- Gragson started 13th and finished 13th in his debut at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last year in the Truck Series race. He led 12 laps and was running second before getting a pair of pit road speeding penalties on his final stop of the night and fell multiple laps down.
- The NASCAR Next alum is coming off a runner-up finish at Atlanta (Ga.) Motor Speedway in the Truck Series’ last stop. After dominating Stage One, Gragson found himself scored in the ninth position for the start of NASCAR overtime. Over the final two laps the Safelite Tundra advanced seven positions, thanks in part to some daring four-wide passes. The second-place result helped the driver of the No. 18 Tundra to catapult from 24th in the championship standings after Daytona, to fourth heading into this weekend’s race at Las Vegas.
- Safelite AutoGlass, the nation’s largest provider of vehicle glass repair and replacement services, will adorn the hood of Gragson’s No. 18 Tundra for all 23 events on the NCWTS schedule in 2018.
Noah Gragson, Driver Q&A
What are some of your fondest memories of racing at The Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway?
“Growing up at the Bullring racing Bandoleros I won the track championship there my first year, finished third in my first race and had a lot of wins. Then, I moved up into the Legends cars and raced a lot of races in that division. Probably my best memory would be racing Super Late Models there. My last Super Late Model race I ran there, I had a second-place car and was going to finish second and then we had a caution at the end and I passed him on the outside. It’s a very bottom line dominant track and I passed a guy on the outside at the start-finish line on a restart, got the lead and never looked back — that was a lot of fun.”
What would it mean to win a Truck Series race at your hometown track?
“If I could win at my hometown track in Las Vegas and to be in front of my hometown crowd — in front of all my friends, my family — that would probably be the coolest moment of my racing career and to do it on the stage in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series it would be a great time. We’re going to have a lot of people out there from Safelite AutoGlass and also Switch is located right in Las Vegas, so we’re going to have a lot of their people as well. It’s going to be a lot of fun and I can’t wait to get back to my home track.”
Noah Gragson Career Highlights
- In 27 career NCWTS starts has collected one win, three poles, 188 laps led, five top-five and 14 top-10 finishes.
- Gragson finished 10th in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) championship standings in 2017 after collecting one win, three poles, 187 laps led, four top-five and 13 top-10 finishes in his rookie campaign. He earned his first NCWTS victory last October at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway outdueling series veterans Johnny Sauter and Matt Crafton in the closing laps.
- The NASCAR Next alum also competed in three events for KBM’s Super Late Model team in 2017, highlighted by his triumph in the prestigious ARCA/CRA Super Series Winchester 400 at Winchester (Ind.) Speedway in October.
- He opened his 2018 season with a seventh-place finish in the ARCA Racing Series season opener at Daytona. After starting in the 21st position, he raced inside the top five for most of the event before coming home in the seventh spot.
- The Las Vegas native has collected four NASCAR K&N Pro Series West victories across 27 career starts and two NASCAR K&N Pro Series East victories across 15 career starts.
Noah Gragson’s No. 18 Safelite AutoGlass Tundra:
KBM-47: The No. 18 Safelite AutoGlass team will unload KBM-47 for Friday night’s NCWTS race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. It is the same Tundra that Christopher Bell led a race-high 64 laps and finished second with last September at the 1.5-mile oval.
