Noah Gragson reflects on his 'selfish' past after signing with Stewart-Haas Racing
In the last five months, Noah Gragson has been through a lot. Now, he’s ready to get back to work and put it all behind him. However, he isn’t afraid to talk about the past. A part of his journey back to NASCAR was realizing his faults and shortcomings so he could be a better racer and person.
Back at the Snowball Derby, Noah Gragson called himself “ignorant” and “uneducated” for liking a meme that made light of George Floyd’s 2020 murder. With the help of NASCAR and the RISE program, Gragson has developed better habits for himself.
Most of all, Gragson has learned. Talking on SiriusXM NASCAR, Gragson reflected on his actions.
“It’s been a big learning opportunity and a growing-up moment. As I mentioned earlier there’s been a lot of people involved in my life over the past five months that have been working just as hard as me. I want to give thanks to NASCAR and the RISE organization for allowing me to listen and learn and ask questions about things I didn’t know about. Taking time to really work on myself and create balance and find balance in my life, create better habits.
“With that being said, it’s been a lot of hard work, it’s been a lot of self-reflection and overall I feel more clear-minded when I’m strapped into a race car, I feel more clear-minded out of a race car.”
Noah Gragson could have doubled down. He could have insisted that he wasn’t in the wrong. However, he made sure he was able to grow through this moment.
Noah Gragson spent the last few months learning
The most important thing Gragson has done in the last few months was to listen. He listened to NASCAR. He listened to the RISE program and he’s now ready to get back in the Cup Series after it looked like his time was over.
All of that learning paid off for Gragson as he made his way to Stewart-Haas Racing.
“With all the learning over the past handful of months, it’s allowed me to be more self-aware and put myself in other people’s shoes, where I was pretty selfish before. … There’s hard times and challenges but you gotta overcome them that’s what I keep telling myself, you gotta overcome them and listen and learn either you win or you learn and I’ve done a lot of learning over the last several months.”
Let’s lay it out plain and simple – Noah Gragson is kind of lucky to have a ride in NASCAR at all. Let alone the Cup Series. When things like this happen, sponsors typically run. However, Gragson brings some sponsorship.
In the past, Gragson has had sponsorship from Black Rifle Coffee and others. If they follow him to his new team, great. As of now, no sponsors have been announced. We will see how it all falls together for Gragson in 2024.