SAN DIEGO — Front Row Motorsports is gearing up for a historic weekend on the West Coast as the NASCAR Cup Series debuts at Naval Base Coronado for the inaugural Anduril 250.
The 255-mile race takes place on a temporary 16-turn street circuit constructed from the roads and runways of Naval Air Station North Island. Designed to celebrate the 250th birthday of the U.S. Navy, the event marks the first time NASCAR will compete on an active military installation.
Noah Gragson will lead the FRM contingent in the No. 4 Ford Mustang Dark Horse, featuring a patriotic paint scheme backed by Rush Truck Centers and Cummins. Gragson, currently 29th in the point standings, has recorded 22nd-place finishes in both road course events this season at Circuit of the Americas and Watkins Glen. However, he brings valuable street-course experience, including a career-best 14th-place finish on the streets of Chicago in 2024.
“To be able to put on a race at an active military base, in front of so many heroes that protect our freedoms each and every day, is an unbelievable honor,” Gragson said. “I’ve been able to run laps on sim… it’s definitely going to be a challenging course but also a lot of fun. There are some technical turns mixed in with some faster, sweeping turns, and then some areas where it will get crazy, especially on the initial start and on restarts.”
Teammate Todd Gilliland arrives in San Diego building on recent momentum after capturing his first career Cup Series stage win last weekend at Pocono Raceway. Driving the No. 34 Grillo’s Pickles Ford, Gilliland sits 25th in the standings and holds FRM’s best historical street-course result, having finished seventh at Chicago in 2024.
“Front Row Motorsports has always been able to hold their own when it comes to road and street courses, so we have a lot of confidence heading into this weekend,” Gilliland said. “We’ve been able to compete within the top-20 consistently the past couple of weeks, but I think we can step it up a bit and run within the top-15 or even top-10.”
Rounding out the three-car FRM lineup is Zane Smith in the No. 38 Hard Rock Casino Tejon Ford Mustang. Currently 24th in points, Smith views the San Diego event as a home race and possesses an elite road-course resume, including back-to-back Craftsman Truck Series victories at Circuit of the Americas in 2022 and 2023.
“It’s one thing to get what I can consider a ‘home race’ back on the schedule, but it just adds another layer when it’s something like this where we’ll be racing on an active military base for the first time,” Smith said. “The cars this FRM No. 38 team has been bringing to the track have been rockets lately… this would be as good of a race as any to turn that around.”