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Noah Gragson on waxing crescents, gravitational pull and more: 12 Questions

Each week, The Athletic asks the same 12 questions to a different race car driver. Up next: Noah Gragson, who is in his first season at Front Row Motorsports and this week heads to his home track of Las Vegas Motor Speedway. This interview has been edited and condensed, but the full version is available on the 12 Questions podcast. 1. What is one of the first autographs you got as a kid and what do you remember about that moment? In 2013, I was racing a Legend car after the spring Cup race out in Vegas and we were walking around the pits. Zane Smith got us pit passes. We were 13 years old, not supposed to be on pit road or anything, and we were just running around. If we couldn't get in through one gate, we'd go to the next gate and see where we could get in. Advertisement And I remember getting Kasey Kahne's autograph when he was walking out to pit road and thought that was the coolest thing ever to be able to meet a Cup guy. I used to really idolize those guys; they were superheroes in my eyes. And now you get to this level and you're like, 'Man, everyone's got their own problems and they're just all people.' 2. What is the most miserable you've ever been inside of a race car? (Circuit of the Americas) last year. About midway through the race, my stomach started boiling. Like 'Man, I'm going to s— all up my back right now.' I got a few more laps in and it's just daggers in my stomach. Had to just make it to the end of the race and try not to focus on my stomach. But then you're like, 'Man, if I just s— myself, will it be better?' Then I asked my crew chief Drew (Blickensderfer): 'Hey, do you have your motorhome here? That determines how bad I push here (so he could run and clean himself up afterward).' What did you eat? I didn't eat anything abnormal. We had Terry Black's (BBQ) the night before the race — meat and corn and stuff — but that doesn't tear me up. I have a pretty good iron cast skillet. Every corner I'd hit and load up, and it'd be different. I'd take a Tums inside the car, they gave me a Tums under the pit stop, and I was like, 'Oh man, I'm better.' Then two laps later, it just shakes all back up and it just was brutal. 3. What is your most recent memory of something you got way too competitive about? Just normal stuff, like even a conversation with my crew chief Drew. Not even about race cars, just who's right and who's wrong. I get very competitive on Wii Bowling. I always want to be the best, so I probably need to carry it more to the Cup Series, because I suck in these cars. 4. What do people get wrong about you? I put on a show more than most people know. I play the game a little bit. I definitely mess up a lot, but I try to be super calculated and probably pay attention more than most people would think. Even if it looks like I'm goofing off, I'm paying attention and I have a pretty good memory. 5. What kind of Uber passenger are you and how much do you care about your Uber rating? I used to have five stars, and I cared about it. I held 4.98 for a while. I haven't looked at it much since I had my first sip of alcohol, because I'm always getting the Uber. So sometimes the guest in the Uber with me will drive the score down. (Pulls out phone to look at his rating) I'm a 4.90. Is that good or bad? Advertisement That's pretty good, especially for having loud people in the car. Yeah, there's been a lot of late nights. 6. This is a wild card question. For awhile you were calling yourself Noah GragZyn and I actually thought you must have an endorsement deal with Zyn. But then I realized you just love nicotine pouches. Would that be your dream sponsorship? No, I sponsor Zyn because I buy so many of them. But something I'm passionate about would be my dream, but definitely Zyn or Lucy Breakers would be super cool. It's a pretty big market right now. On Parker Kligerman's podcast, he said a lot of drivers use the pouches inside the car. Yeah. In the car, on the pit box, from sun up to sun down. There's a lot of guys in this garage who have one in their lip. You just wouldn't know it. 7. This is my 16th year of doing the 12 Questions interviews, so I'm going back to an old one and following up. In 2018, I asked you: 'Who has the most punchable face in NASCAR?' And you said it was Justin Haley. You said: 'I actually want to punch him. I don't like him. It's coming one day.' Have you guys made peace now? We're good. Justin is a cool kid. He's lot of fun. We've hung out before and used to be teammates over at Kaulig. I just was put on the spot a little bit. There's nobody I hate out here. It's a fraternity. I was in an ultimatum a little bit (with that question) and I had to choose somebody. But I wouldn't choose anybody now. 8. Other than one of your teammates, name a driver who you'd be one of the first people to congratulate them if they won a race. Riley (Herbst, his childhood friend from Las Vegas) would be cool. There's a lot of guys in this garage who are really cool guys. It was pretty interesting when Carl Edwards was giving his Hall of Fame speech (in February). He said, 'Man, I wish I would have appreciated the competition a little more, because that's what drove me at the end of the day,' and that really struck something with me. All these guys, we go race each other and we hate each other on the racetrack, but they're all good guys and we're all in the same boat. I truly want to see everybody succeed out here. 9. How much do you use AI technology, whether it's for your job or your daily life? None that I know of. I'm not doing essays or anything. If I was in school, I'd utilize it quite a bit more. I have fears of what all could happen with all this technology and it's not humans running it. It's obviously very, very smart stuff, but it's kind of way over my head right now. I haven't educated myself enough on it. Advertisement 10. What is a time in your life that was really challenging, but you feel proud of the way that you responded to it? Losing the championship (in the Xfinity Series in 2022). I was a good loser, congratulating Ty Gibbs, and was very happy for him. There's some (trash talk) I said before the race, but it was all just to be a mind game. I don't want to see anybody get hurt or anybody to fail in life, but if you can get in your competition's head and just have that little bit of advantage, that might be the difference maker — although it wasn't in Phoenix. I was happy for Ty and he beat me straight up. … I was pissed, personally, but I'm proud I went over and shook his hand and congratulated him, because I know he went through some challenging times after that (Gibbs' father, Coy, passed away hours later). You never want to burn a bridge with anybody, because at the end of the day, I support all these men and women who are in this garage, because we're all together. 11. What needs to happen in NASCAR to take this sport to the next level of popularity? You've got to get these guys to show their personality. It's a double-edged sword, because you have all these partners nowadays (versus having just one or two for a season years ago). Those partners have different views. So it's better just to shut up and not even walk the line. Just stay behind the scenes, out of sight, out of mind. Because if you speak up about one thing or you have an opinion on something, what might make Partner A really, really happy might piss Partner B off. It's so hard to come by partnerships these days in NASCAR. It just makes it impossible for these guys to be outspoken and really show who they are, because they don't want to piss anybody off. And I'm one of the guys who tries to walk the line as aggressively as possible; I try to be me and have as much fun as I can out there. But these guys can't do it. I know these guys have a lot more personality than they show out there. … It's all about characters. I love what Carson Hocevar is doing right now. Is he a pain in the ass to race against? One-thousand percent. Is he being successful on the racetrack? One-thousand percent. At the end of the day, he's got people talking. He's got the pot stirred up. And he's kind of the villain right now. He needs to double down on that and sell T-shirts, get people talking. All this is now — not even NASCAR, but in life — is your impressions. It's your engagement on social media. It's unfortunate because people value their worth off of how many followers they get or how many impressions they get. But at the end of the day, the more followers you've got on Instagram, the more money that's flowing into that race team for partnership and the more successful you're going to be as a race car driver. 12. Each week, I ask a driver to give me a question for the next person. And Michael McDowell had one for you that must be an inside joke or something: Does the moon phase and gravitational pull affect how your car handles? I don't actually believe the moon phase does anything, but Riley was running a Cup race at Richmond. It was the night race when Austin Dillon got into Joey (Logano) and Denny (Hamlin), and we were on the option tires, and Riley was tweaking out going to the track, just nervous. So we're on the plane going up to Richmond, and (Chase) Briscoe is like, 'Man, (the track) is gonna be gripped up. It's a waxing crescent.' Advertisement Riley's like, 'What does that mean?' Briscoe goes, 'Dude, we only race on a waxing crescent at night like every year and a half. It's gonna be gripped up. We might have to run qualifying (tire) pressures during the whole race, because it'll be so gripped up.' So then Riley gets in on the joke. Then Austin Dillon's crew chief is (Richard) Boswell, who used to crew chief Chase Briscoe. So last week I called Boswell and Austin answered and I'm like, 'Dude, are you guys ready for this waxing crescent?! Boswell, have you told him about that? Do you know about that yet?' And Austin is like, 'No …' and I'm like, 'Man, Boswell! You've got to tell him!' So Boswell starts in on it, and then we got Austin and Ty (Dillon) at driver intros to talk about the waxing crescent. We started trying to convince Brad Keselowski and Alex Bowman and Erik Jones. Now there's a few more people in on it, and then we're just finding our next people we're going to tell about the waxing crescent. So no, I don't believe it, but Michael McDowell was on the driver intros stage when we were trying to convince them. That's hilarious. Do you think you actually sold some people on it, like they believe it? I don't think they believe it, but at first they're like, 'Is this real? What's going on?' You can definitely see the wheels spinning when you're watching them try and process all of it. Like 'Wait … has it been gripped up? Yeah, Richmond was super gripped up. Huh!' Do you have a question I can ask the next person? I asked Kyle Busch last time: If he could pick one race car and one racetrack to race anything, anywhere, what would be the dream combination? He said Winchester in a Super Late Model and I said an Xfinity car at Homestead. So ask the next person the same thing. (Top photo of Noah Gragson before the March 2 race at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas: James Gilbert / Getty Images)