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<\/p>\nNoah Gragson has been caught red-handed by NASCAR.<\/p>\n
He became the first driver busted during Daytona 500 qualifying for violating a new rule banning drivers from sticking their hands out the opening of the window during the qualifying run.<\/p>\n
Gragson’s time in the No. 4 Ford for Front Row Motorsports was thrown out Wednesday because he used his left hand in an attempt to deflect air and gain an advantage on the track.<\/p>\n
\u201cI completely forgot about that rule so that one’s on me,\u201d Gragson said. \u201cYeah, I feel like an idiot for that.<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old Gragson did not advance to the second round of qualifying and lost his chance to race for the pole. The starting order for Sunday’s Daytona 500 will be determined by a pair of Thursday night qualifying races.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Teams believed that drivers could earn an aerodynamic advantage on superspeedways with the gesture before NASCAR made the call in the offseason to ban it (AP)<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like the Daytona 500 is such a long race, you can kind of start wherever,\u201d Gragson said. “It is what it is. I feel like an idiot for that. I\u2019m dumb for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the other hand, most in NASCAR found it hilarious.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the most Noah thing ever,\u201d NASCAR Hall of Fame driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. wrote on social media. \u201cDon\u2019t touch that stove, it\u2019s hot. Touches stove. Gets burnt. Says yes, it is hot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kyle Busch won the pole for the Daytona 500. Chase Briscoe, last year\u2019s pole-sitter, qualified second and got a good chuckle out of Gragson getting busted.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s my buddy, but I\u2019m not surprised it was the guy that had it happen to him,\u201d Briscoe said. \u201cI told my guys as soon as it happened, of all the people, I bet he didn\u2019t even remember it was a rule.\u201d<\/p>\n
Good call.<\/p>\n
Teams believed that drivers could earn an aerodynamic advantage on superspeedways with the gesture before NASCAR made the call in the offseason to ban it.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes you have a car that drives very easily, and you can do it easily and other times you have got your hands full and you can\u2019t do it,\u201d Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman said.<\/p>\n
“You always have an engineer telling you that you need to do it, exactly what position to put your hand in and all that. But I am glad that I can just keep two hands on the steering wheel for this one.\u201d<\/p>\n
NASCAR suspended Gragson in 2023 and he parted ways with Legacy Motor Club for liking an insensitive meme with a photo of George Floyd\u2019s face.<\/p>\n
Gragson is winless in 111 career Cup races and will make his fifth Daytona 500 start.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t care if I start last for this race,\u201d Gragson said.<\/p>\n
“I know that\u2019s probably not what people want to hear, but my best finish in Cup is third at Talladega and we qualified second-to-last. It\u2019s kind of crazy, but it is what it is here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Noah Gragson has been caught red-handed by NASCAR. He became the first driver busted during Daytona 500 qualifying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,19546,634,7410,99102,82],"class_list":["post-470971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-daytona-500","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-hall-of-fame","tag-noah-gragson","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}