Noah Gragson beats back Gibbs for Pocono 225 victory

Noah Gragson had to stave off a charging Ty Gibbs, but the help of fresher tyres gave him the edge in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series battle at Pocono Raceway. Gragson’s three wins tie his season best from 2021.

“That was probably the best I’ve ever driven there,” commented Gragson, who celebrated by scaling the catchfence with his team and vomiting, the latter a gross but unusually continuing trend for him after race wins. “I’m worn out (from) working my ass off out there to keep the #54 back. He’s pretty fast.”

Gragson won Stage #2 after spending the first segment following JR Motorsports team-mate Justin Allgaier. Another JRM driver Josh Berry was strong for the third stage until Gragson took the lead on lap 69 and never surrendered it. Following a caution with thirty-four laps remaining for Sammy Smith‘s spin, Gragson elected to change four tyres on his pit stop while Gibbs did not, and this strategy ultimately paid off.

“It definitely hurt us being on a tyre disadvantage,” said Gibbs who settled for second. “I was so surprised to hang with the #9 when he was on rights. I had a great car, just didn’t put it together. I want to say I felt like on my part I just made some mistakes, but we’ll come back at it next weekend.

Further helping matters for Gragson was a moment in the Tunnel Turn where Gibbs got loose in a side draft with the leader. The runner-up continued, “We both went in there side-by-side and I just lost my side force and got loose under him, but that’s racing. I put myself in that position, but I feel like I definitely have to look back and see what other options I had. I just want to say thank you to my team and everybody who is a part of this deal. I had a great time.”

Besides Smith’s spin, two cautions were called for massive wrecks that sent cars airbourne and involved the frontstretch pit wall. The first came just three laps into the race when Rajah Caruth clipped Alex Labbé and the latter was shot into said wall, causing his car to catch air. An even bigger accident occurred on lap 48 when a Santino Ferrucci spin precipitated into Jeb Burton making his case for X Games High Air gold by being sandwiched between a sideways Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and the pit wall, which sent him flipping onto his roof. All drivers were unharmed in their respective crashes, and a red flag waved for eight minutes and twenty-eight seconds for facilitate cleanup of the latter.

“I got really up close to Cole (Custer) just trying to understand—being part-time, it’s so hard to judge the air off the side of the cars,” commented Ferrucci. “I just made a mistake, man. I just got a little off the bottom and I got really close to him and the side force kind of went and I started to lose the rear. Our car actually hasn’t been loose all day. It’s just a shame for everybody else because there were a lot of cars caught up in that just because we were not spaced out yet.”

Sage Karam, who was Ferrucci’s team-mate for the Indianapolis 500 in May, finished twentieth in his return to Pocono. Saturday’s event was his first time competing at the track since the 2015 NTT IndyCar Series race, where he spun into the wall and debris from his car resulted in the death of fellow driver Justin Wilson. Days before the Xfinity race, he rode his bicycle around Pocono as his way of “[coming] to terms” with it.

“Mission accomplished,” Karam tweeted after the race. “Really happy with how today went. Happy to give @TeamAlphaPrime a top 20, thank you @CRCAuto for making this happen for me. Thanks to everyone who showed me support over the last few days. Was really cool to hear the cheers during driver intros today!”

Race results

Finish	Start	Number	Driver	Team	Manufacturer	Laps	Status
1	9	9	Noah Gragson	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	90	Running
2	2	54	Ty Gibbs	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	90	Running
3	7	8	Josh Berry	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	90	Running
4	4	16	A.J. Allmendinger	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	90	Running
5	6	2	Sheldon Creed	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	90	Running
6	12	1	Sam Mayer	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	90	Running
7	1	7	Justin Allgaier	JR Motorsports	Chevrolet	90	Running
8	8	21	Austin Hill	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	90	Running
9	13	11	Daniel Hemric	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	90	Running
10	16	07	Cole Custer*	SS-Green Light Racing	Ford	90	Running
11	21	10	Landon Cassill	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	90	Running
12	14	98	Riley Herbst	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	90	Running
13	26	68	Brandon Brown	Brandonbilt Motorsports	Chevrolet	90	Running
14	28	31	Myatt Snider	Jordan Anderson Racing	Chevrolet	90	Running
15	15	39	Ryan Sieg	RSS Racing	Ford	90	Running
16	24	23	Anthony Alfredo	Our Motorsports	Chevrolet	90	Running
17	3	19	Brandon Jones	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	90	Running
18	17	02	Brett Moffitt	Our Motorsports	Chevrolet	90	Running
19	25	34	Kyle Weatherman	Jesse Iwuji Motorsports	Chevrolet	90	Running
20	27	45	Sage Karam	Alpha Prime Racing	Chevrolet	90	Running
21	33	78	Josh Williams	B.J. McLeod Motorsports	Chevrolet	90	Running
22	20	38	Kyle Sieg	RSS Racing	Ford	90	Running
23	30	5	Stefan Parsons*	B.J. McLeod Motorsports	Chevrolet	90	Running
24	29	91	Mason Massey	DGM Racing	Chevrolet	90	Running
25	35	6	Ryan Vargas	JD Motorsports	Chevrolet	89	Running
26	23	4	Bayley Currey	JD Motorsports	Chevrolet	89	Running
27	34	08	David Starr	SS-Green Light Racing	Ford	89	Running
28	38	66	J.J. Yeley	MBM Motorsports	Ford	89	Running
29	36	35	Patrick Emerling	Emerling-Gase Motorsports	Chevrolet	89	Running
30	37	13	Timmy Hill*	MBM Motorsports	Toyota	89	Running
31	5	18	Sammy Smith	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	53	Accident
32	18	51	Jeremy Clements	Jeremy Clements Racing	Chevrolet	48	Accident
33	19	27	Jeb Burton	Our Motorsports	Chevrolet	46	Accident
34	10	48	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.*	Big Machine Racing Team	Chevrolet	45	Accident
35	11	26	Santino Ferrucci	Sam Hunt Racing	Toyota	45	Accident
36	31	77	Ronnie Bassett Jr.	Bassett Racing	Chevrolet	45	Accident
37	22	36	Alex Labbé	DGM Racing	Chevrolet	1	Accident
38	32	44	Rajah Caruth*	Alpha Prime Racing	Chevrolet	1	Accident
DNQ		47	Brennan Poole	Mike Harmon Racing	Chevrolet

Italics – Competing for Rookie of the Year
* – Ineligible for points