In NASCAR’s marathon event, Noah Gragson and the No. 4 Front Row Motorsports team delivered one of its best performances of the season.
With a 10th-place finish (his third top 10 of the season), Gragson now sits 28th in the driver standings. The result was also the first time in Gragson’s Cup career where he completed all 600 miles at Charlotte (in four starts), solidifying the finish as his best in “America‘s Home for Racing.”
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According to NASCAR Insights, the statistics back up Gragson’s performance as a solid one across the board. On Sunday, he was third-best in Restart Rating, which was crucial given there were five restarts in the second half of the 400-lapper. Having the ninth-best Speed Rating didn’t hurt either, but Gragson’s 11th-ranked Passer Rating and 14th-best Defense Rating proved vital as these areas improved as the race reached the middle stages. This, in turn, allowed him to remain a top 10 car for most of the evening and collect critical stage points.
But the valiant performance didn’t just come from Gragson; his crew on pit road also met the moment, ranking seventh-best in Pit Crew Rating, which was nine spots better than the team’s season average. In other words, the No. 4 team was zeroed in on all the details this past week for the crown-jewel race, and a top-10 finish was the reward for such an effort.
All in all, Gragson walked away from Charlotte moving up from 31st to 28th in the regular-season standings, which firmly puts him inside the 32-driver grid for the looming NASCAR In-Season Challenge, with the field being cemented following this Sunday’s Cup race at Nashville Superspeedway (7 p.m. ET, Prime Video, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
As such, Nashville will be on tap for Gragson and the No. 4 Ford team. He only has two Cup starts on the 1.33-mile concrete oval, but finished 10th there last year after a record-breaking five overtimes, which gives him a chance to build off the momentum he has already gained.
Other notables from Sunday:
— Todd Gilliland and Zane Smith — Gragson’s Front Row teammates — ranked seventh or better in Restart Rating.
— Carson Hocevar’s No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet had the fourth-best Speed Rating.
— Brad Keselowski finished fifth despite not ranking top 10 in any of the five categories.
