Another race, another on-track incident involving Ricky Stenhouse Jr. This one had Noah Gragson as his dancing partner and occurred during Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Gragson made contact with Stenhouse coming off of Turn 3, sliding down across the backstretch and hitting the inside wall. Gragson’s night ended just 170 laps into the rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600. After the race, Gragson appeared to place the blame on Stenhouse.
“Yeah, [Stenhouse] just misjudged his run and got us in the left rear, just a miscalculation. It sucks, but the sun will come up tomorrow,” Gragson said, via John Newby of NBC Sports.
Stenhouse, of course, is just eight days removed from his fight with Kyle Busch following the NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway which landed him a $75,000 fine. This time, there were no sparks to fly between he and Gragson.
Noah Gragson’s solid campaign hits a bump at Charlotte
Gragson, who entered Sunday’s race with three top 10s in his last four starts, finished P38. He slipped to 21st in the points standings and further out of playoff contention. Gragson has even more incentive to run well given the uncertainty at Stewart-Haas Racing, which has been rumored to be mulling over selling some or all four of its Cup Series charters.
Still, the 25-year-old’s first season with Stewart-Haas has thus far been solid, and he recently earned some praise from one of NASCAR’s best, Denny Hamlin.
“He’s certainly finishing very well,” Hamlin said earlier this month. “I think he’s performing well [as well]. To me, he’s clearly running the best of the Stewart-Haas cars right now. That’s a quick uneducated kneejerk reaction. But I feel like whenever I’m going through the field, he’s typically one of the front SHR cars. He definitely took a big leap in the offseason, and he seems to be very focused. You’re seeing nothing but good things out of Noah right now, he’s really performing well.”
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