NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Overview
Event: UNOH 200, Race 16 of 23, 200 Laps – 55/55/90; 106.6 Miles
Location: Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway (0.533-mile oval)
Date/Broadcast: Aug. 16, 2018 at 8:30 p.m. ET on FOX, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR 90
What You Need to ‘Noah’bout
- After a fourth-place finish last week at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Noah Gragson remained second in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series regular season standings as the circuit heads to Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway for the final regular season race of 2018. Gragson trails championship leader Johnny Sauter by 56 points, meaning that as long as Sauter starts Thursday night’s event and earns the five points that come with a last-place finish he will clinch the regular season championship and earn 15 playoff points. Grant Enfinger is currently in the third spot, 19 points behind Gragson as the two battle for second place in the regular season and the 10 playoff points associated with that position, compared to the eight points that third place receives.
- With Erik Jones earning a runner-up finish filling in for Gragson at Pocono Raceway in late July, the No. 18 team is still within striking distance of finishing first in the regular season Owner’s standings. The No. 18 team currently sits 14 points behind the No. 21 team. The point distribution for the Owner’s playoffs is the same, with 15 playoff points going to the regular season leader and 10 to second place.
- Gragson currently has a streak of nine consecutive top-10 finishes and overall in 14 starts this season has posted one win, six top-five and 11 top-10 finishes resulting in an average finish of 8.2. The Las Vegas native leads the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series with four pole awards, seven stage wins, 468 laps led and an average starting position of 4.9 in 2018.
- The 20-year-old driver has earned 12 playoff points this season, including the seven he earned by sweeping all three stages en route to victory from the pole at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City in May. His most recent stage victory came in Stage Two at Kentucky Speedway on July 12.
- Gragson qualified fourth and finished 15th in last year’s NCWTS event at Bristol. He ran inside the top five for the majority the first two stages of the event, but had to start the Final Stage at the back of the field after a pit crew member went over the wall too soon. Gragson’s crew chief, Rudy Fugle, visited victory lane with KBM owner-driver Kyle Busch in the 2013 event and his drivers have posted an average finish of 4.5 across four starts at the half-mile track.
- 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
Describe a lap around Bristol Motor Speedway
“Bristol is a wild place — you feel like you are in one of those flying saucers at the fair, or carnival, where you lay up against the wall and it spins you around. The g’s are so high there and you’re so compressed in the seat that it feels like a gorilla is standing on your shoulders. You really don’t have time to think — you go off into the corner and you’ve got a bunch of load on you and you’re all sunk down in the seat. You’re on the throttle it feels like the entire lap — you barely lift out of the throttle, probably only for a second. It just feels like you’re going in a circle and you kind of lose track on where the start finish line is because everything looks the same. Sometimes you might think you’re coming to the start-finish line, but you’re on the backstretch, so it gets kind of rhythmy I’d say. It’s definitely one of the coolest places that we go to drive.”
Noah Gragson Career Highlights
- In 39 career NCWTS starts has collected two wins, seven poles, 655 laps led, 10 top-five and 24 top-10 finishes.
- Recorded two top-five and three top-10 finishes resulting in average finish of 4.3 across three NASCAR Xfinity Series starts for Joe Gibbs Racing this season
- 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
- 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 16 career starts
Noah Gragson’s No. 18 Safelite AutoGlass Tundra:
KBM-28: The No. 18 Safelite AutoGlass team will unload KBM-28 for Thursday’s UNOH 200 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway. Gragson captured the pole with the Tundra at Dover (Del.) International Speedway in its lone start this this year and was running second late in the race before relegated to a 20th-place finish after a late accident. The Toyota has two career victories, most recently with Christopher Bell at Kentucky in 2017.
KBM Notes of Interest
- KBM drivers have collected three wins, four poles, 496 laps led, six top-five and nine top-10 finishes resulting in an average finish of 12.9 across 18 starts at Bristol
- Owner-driver Kyle Busch has collected all three of his organization’s victories at the half-mile oval, winning the NCWTS race as a part of his historic Bristol Sweeps in 2010 and 2017 and he also won the 2013 NCWTS event.
- The No. 18 team, which last year was the No. 4 team with Christopher Bell, has won five consecutive NCWTS Owner’s titles for KBM and has produced two championship-winning drivers (Erik Jones, 2015 and Christopher Bell, 2017)
- The No. 18, the number which was on the first Tundra that went to victory lane for KBM in 2010, has 21 career victories
- KBM holds the NCWTS records for most career wins (68) and most wins in a single season (14 in 2014). In addition to collecting a series-record six Owner’s Championships, the organization has produced two championship-winning drivers; Erik Jones (2015) and Christopher Bell (2017)
