Each week, The Athletic asks the same 12 questions to a different race car driver. Up next: Las Vegas native Noah Gragson, who returns to his home track this weekend sitting 25th in the NASCAR Cup Series standings. This interview has been edited and condensed, but the full version is available on the 12 Questions Podcast.
1. Do you typically arrive for things early, late or on time, and why?
I’m usually rolling in right on time. If I have an ETA and it says I’m gonna get there at 3:02 for a 3 o’clock meeting or something, that’s how my life is. And I’ll make up the two minutes somehow and walk in right on time.
2. What is the pettiest thing that annoys you during a race weekend?
I mean this with absolutely no disrespect, but it mind-boggles me when you’ll be standing there taking pictures with a bunch of people, and they’re not ready to take a picture. Then they get their phone out when you get to them, and they’re like, “Can we take a picture?” And you’re like, “Yeah, I’ve been taking pictures with everyone.”
I mean this with gratitude: It’s great they want a picture, but it just drives me nuts (they’re not ready).
It’s like the people at TSA when you get up there, and you don’t have your ID out. Every single person had their ID out. What were you doing the whole time?
The whole time. It just drives me absolutely nuts. I’m nice about it. There’d be some guys in the garage who would probably just walk away in some situations.
One guy yelled at me yesterday. I was there at this campsite for like five minutes. I had plenty of time to take a picture and I was leaving and (the man’s wife) was like, “Can I take a selfie with you?” Then the guy pulls his camera out and he’s taking a picture. I was walking back and I got like this (demonstrates how he leaned into the photo and smiled), and he was like, “Jesus, can’t you act like you know each other? You’re trying to promote sponsors out here. You’re being an a—hole about it.”
I’m like, “Well, I don’t know her and I was leaving, and then you called me back, and I came back to take a picture.” I’m ranting right now, but that guy really made me mad.
3. What is something you’ve learned to stop explaining to people?
I’ve learned to stop explaining myself, and I just be myself. If they want me for me, they can have me for me. If they don’t like me for me, then that’s their problem.
4. If you could go back to the early days before you reached NASCAR, what is one different decision you wish you had made in your career?
I probably wouldn’t make any decisions differently. If I made mistakes, I tried to learn from those mistakes and just become a better person from it. Going through challenges makes you better, and they grow you as a person. So I don’t necessarily know if I would regret or change anything before NASCAR.
5. What is it like to be in a debrief after a bad race?
Eh, it’s not too bad. It goes back to the explaining yourself question. You can’t change it. You got what you got. You might as well try and find the positives and make the most of it and learn as much as you can in the debrief.
Some people will probably be pouting in those debriefs. (Imitates a driver whining.) “Oh, my car is —” No! We didn’t get it done. We sucked. We got another opportunity this next weekend coming up. It is what it is.
“I mean this with absolutely no disrespect,” Noah Gragson says, “but it mind-boggles me when (you’re) taking pictures with a bunch of people, and they’re not ready to take a picture.” (Sean Gardner / Getty Images)
6. I’m asking two wild-card questions, one about the past and one about the present. In the past, you used to put yourself out there a lot on social media, then dialed it back, and now it feels like you’re putting yourself out there a little more again. Where are you now with it, and how useful is it to you?
You could post a picture of me hunting, and 99 people comment on it and they’re happy about it, and one person claps at me. Then they get mad and they send emails and stuff because I’m hunting, and it gets back to the shop and the team. It takes one person to ruin it for everyone.
I’ve seen that a little bit in my career. I’ve found a lot of happiness in my life when I stopped worrying about others and just worried about myself. When you solely give a s— about yourself and what you can control, things get a lot better.
On the social media side, they’ve really put a muzzle on me. I know there’s been controversy (Gragson was suspended in 2023 for liking an insensitive George Floyd meme on Instagram), but I don’t show people my behind-the-scenes life anymore. They’ve lost that privilege. Now I let other people control my social media for the most part. I don’t even touch it for the most part, because it takes one to ruin it for everyone.
Now I say that, and I’ve made mistakes on social media too. I’m not just pointing the finger at other people. But there’s always going to be somebody that’s mad at you for something. You see it with NASCAR rules, you see it with everything in the world: There are going to be people who like it and people who don’t like it, but the people who don’t like it are the ones who create a problem.
7. In terms of the present, on the latest season of “Full Speed,” you really opened yourself up emotionally and talked about your dad (who is imprisoned as the result of a fatal DUI accident in 2019) in a way we haven’t seen before. Why did you decide to do that now?
The time has passed where I’ve become more comfortable with the situation and stuff. I just never really talked about it publicly because I wasn’t really comfortable with it. Now I’ve kind of taken the approach of, “That’s a part of my journey. That’s a chapter in my life that makes me who I am.” So it’s kind of owning, “Hey, this is the situation that I’m in, and this is part of my life.”
I try not to hide anything. I try to be an open book. But I felt like “Full Speed” was the biggest platform I’ve been on to really give people a behind-the-scenes look at who I am as a person and the driver I am, and the son and brother and friend I am to people. It just seemed like it was the appropriate time for me to tell that story.
I’ve had the opportunity to go on the “Dale Jr. Download” and talk to Dale, but I’ve always told him no just because I felt like that was going to be brought up, and I don’t know if I was ready for that question.
We sat down and did a Zoom call with the Amazon Prime people, and I was like, “Hey, I’m willing to tell you guys anything.” I told them the story about my dad and I said, “You guys can put that in there if you need to.”
8. If you could get any driver’s helmet in the history of motorsports, who would it be?
I’ve got a (Travis) Pastrana helmet from his NASCAR days, which is sick, because he was always my hero and kind of got me into racing.
Kyle Larson had a 25th anniversary Target helmet that he ran — I think it was 2015. It was a silver car, and his helmet was chrome and red with Target. I always loved that helmet a lot, so I would probably want that helmet.
Or I’d want this all-bronze Sebastian Vettel JMD (Jens Munser Designs) Arai helmet that he ran years ago. I don’t necessarily know the year, maybe 2014 or so, but it was an all-bronze painted ripple helmet that looked really, really cool.
9. When things aren’t going well, do you prefer that people leave you alone or check in on you?
I find it very difficult when people check in on someone. I find it really difficult to check in on someone as well, just because when my dad’s situation happened, everybody texted me, “Hey, I’m thinking of you.” And I appreciate that, but it’s a very challenging time for anybody to know what the proper thing to say is.
There were people who were just reaching out to reach out, and then there were people who were genuinely trying to be helpful. That made me think, “Man, when something happens, I know what it’s like to be on the other side of things.” When everyone’s just bombarding you — “Hey, what happened? Are you OK?” — it’s tough.
I think of Tyler Reddick’s son and their situation over the past 12 months (when Rookie Reddick was hospitalized with heart failure last year due to a tumor that was later removed). Instead of sending a text, I just waited until I saw Tyler and gave him a hug and said, “Man, I love you.” That’s the only thing I can say.
The people who are closest to you, I know they will do anything for me — and I hope the people that I’m closest to, if I’m on the other side of that, they know that I’ll do anything for them. So I feel like you don’t have to say that to people. “Hey, let me know if you need anything.” That one pisses me off a little bit. If you gotta tell somebody that, you’re probably not there for them (normally).
10. What is something about yourself that would surprise people who think they know you?
People probably think I’m a lot more wild. I don’t even drink. People think, “Oh, he just shotguns beers all the time and parties all the time.” It’s like, I really don’t. I could see where after we won a race and I shotgunned beers and said, “Let’s go to the Boulevard,” that’s a self-portrayed image I put on myself as that more outgoing guy. But I don’t even drink anymore.
11. What is something you laugh about now that was absolutely not funny at the time?
A general one is that Zane (Smith) always gives me a hard time for is I’ll get done after practice and I’ll be pissed sometimes, and he calls (Gragson’s facial expression) the “Mad Dog.” (Tries to imitate it.) I can’t even do it, but just come over after practice and take a picture of me — I probably have the Mad Dog on if we didn’t run good.
12. Each week, I ask a driver to give me a question for the next person. Last week was Christopher Bell and he says: “How do we fix the speedway package?”
What’s wrong with it? Why do we gotta f—ing fix everything? I don’t get it. We got what we got. Let’s just go do it.
It doesn’t bother you? The fuel-saving type strategy?
No! Save more fuel than the other guys and do a better job than them, and you’ll find yourself up front at the end of these things after the last green-flag pit stop.
He’s mad because what? Because we’re racing? I don’t understand. I’m not the best road course racer. He might not be the best superspeedway racer. But you still go and you try your best. I could say, “Oh, I need a bigger spoiler on the car for a road course because I suck at it. We need to f—ing fix that.” No. I just need to become a better road course racer. Become a better speedway racer. I dunno, save fuel better. Don’t be a dumba— and run wide open the whole time. Strategy.
They’re all playing checkers. It’s not that difficult. Just run less throttle than the rest of the guys around you, and you’re gonna spend less time on pit road and you’re gonna be up front by the end of the thing. Christopher Bell wins a superspeedway race and he’s gonna be like, “Yo, this s— is awesome. Hell yeah!”
Do you have a question I can ask the next person?
If you could race one car — one vehicle — at any track, where would it be? My answer for that question is Homestead in an (O’Reilly Auto Parts Series) car. I love that track. But I’d be curious to see what these other guys would say — F1 cars around Dover, that’d be crazy.