By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
Noah Gragson ended his rookie Xfinity Series season with a fourth-place finish Saturday night at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Though missing the Championship 4, Gragson brought his No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet its ninth top-five finish of 2019, leading 10 laps in the process.
For the 21-year-old, the unique racetrack was a bowl of opportunity.
“We had been running the top lane at a lot of these tracks. We wanted to come here,” Gragson said. “It set us up for this track at the end of the year. I hate to see Homestead not be in the championship next year. This place… is just awesome. I had a blast.”
With nine top-10 finishes in the last 11 races, Gragson felt the improvement as the year progressed.
“We led some laps [tonight], ran the top five about the whole night,” he said. “Got the wall running, was one of, if not, the fastest car. That’s progress for this team.”
Gragson was good enough to run fender-to-fender with the Championship 4 contenders, including his teammate Justin Allgaier, who came up short of his first series title.
For Gragson, it made no difference in how he raced.
“Screw them all, other than my teammate,” he said. “We’re racing for the win. We didn’t get into any of them, everyone raced hard, raced clean. We were duking it out and put on one hell of a show.
“We wanted to see Justin get it in Victory Lane. I was trying everything I could to help him out there. It just wasn’t mean to be as this JR Motorsports team as a whole.”
Though not Gragson’s career-high result, he believes it was among his most consistent put-together races of his rookie year.
“I definitely think the way we paced the race,” he said. “If I didn’t hit the wall so many times, I would’ve been a 10/10. I would rate it a 9/10. Overall, I’m really thankful. I want to be in a competitive racecar. [Crew chief] Dave Elenz has a great set-up for here. Definitely one of my bests.”