Las Vegas native gets career-best Cup Series finish at LVMS

Noah Gragson, before Sunday, had not raced on a traditional 1½-mile racetrack in the NASCAR Cup Series since the Coke 600 at Charlotte in May 2023.

That didn’t stop him from scoring a career-best finish at his home track.

Gragson, a Las Vegas native, was sixth in the Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. His previous career best was a ninth-place finish at the Daytona 500 in February.

The 25-year-old was suspended by NASCAR in August for liking an insensitive meme on social media and didn’t race the rest of the season. He was back Sunday with a new team and performed well in his No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford.

“All the challenges — I haven’t been to a 1½-mile track in over six, seven months — I was a little nervous about if I was going to know what to do or not,” Gragson said. “These guys are good. It feels good to do it in front of the hometown crowd.”

Gragson qualified 30th on Saturday. He slowly worked his way into the top 10 on Sunday. He charged up after a restart with less than 30 laps to go.

“I was battling Ty (Gibbs) and Ross (Chastain) for a top-five (finish). I really wanted a top-five,” Gragson said. “Coming from 30th to sixth, I’m just really proud of everyone’s effort.”

Gragon asked Legacy Motor Club to release him from his contract following his suspension last season so he could focus on the reinstatement process. Stewart-Haas Racing announced in December it had signed Gragson to drive its No. 10 car to replace Aric Almirola, who retired from full-time racing.

“This team — I think we have the tightest group in the garage,” Gragson said. “They’re awesome to work with and I love every single one of them.”

Gragson said in his first race with the new Ford Mustang Dark Horse Cup Series car that it was fast. He added he’ll need to keep working to gain spots in restarts like he did at the end of the race.

“We definitely need to be better and I need to clean some stuff up,” Gragson said. “Other than that last restart, I don’t think I had any net gains on restarts so I need to keep working on that.”

Gragson entered Sunday last in the Cup Series standings with minus-6 points. He earned a 35-point penalty for an infraction with his car’s roof rail deflections.

“I’m still trying to figure it all out,” Gragson said. “Overall, it’s a good stepping stone where we’re at right now. We’re going to take this, get back into the positive in points and just keep on working, learning and becoming better than we were yesterday and keep that attitude.”

Committed to winning

New Las Vegas Lights FC owner and former MLB All-Star Jose Bautista drove the pace car for the Pennzoil 400. The Lights begin their 2024 campaign Saturday at Memphis 901 FC.

Bautista said he was looking into investment opportunities in the United Soccer League and that he “jumped all over” the Lights with Las Vegas growing as a sports city. The 15-year MLB veteran said he’s focused on delivering better results for the team.

“Hopefully we get to winning more often, that’s the whole point of this,” Bautista said. “I’m going to bring my competitive spirit from being a former athlete into the owner’s box and try to win as many games as possible. … Everybody enjoys coming out to watch sports events and games when the team you root for is winning, so I’m prioritizing that.”

Bautista was announced as the Lights owner on Jan. 16. He said it’s been a “good challenge” to change the way the organization has been run.

“Winning needs to be (priority) No. 1, so we’re going to lead with that,” Bautista said. “Everything is going to take care of itself after that.”

Raiders punter AJ Cole gave the command to start engines. Cole said he thought about reaching out to former teammate Derek Carr for advice but decided against “outside consultation.”

“I kind of didn’t want other people to cloud my process,” Cole said. “I just wanted to put the blinders on and sort of run my race.”

Busch’s day

Las Vegas native Kyle Busch finished 26th and got a pit road penalty on the 211th lap for pitting outside of his pit box. The penalty messed up his day and prevented him from getting into the top 10.

Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.