Noah Gragson To Miss Sonoma As Grant Enfinger Makes His Cup Debut

Jan 21, 2024

Noah Gragson, driver of the No. 42 Sunseeker Resort Chevrolet, spins after an on-track incident ... [+] during the Enjoy Illinois 300 at WWT Raceway. (Photo by Jeff Curry/Getty Images)

Noah Gragson is the latest Nascar driver to be plagued with concussion-like symptoms. The 24-year-old's brake rotor exploded near the end of the Enjoy Illinois 300 at WWT Raceway last weekend, and he will now miss the upcoming event at Sonoma Raceway.

Gragson, who competes for Legacy Motor Club, will be replaced by Craftsman Truck Series veteran Grant Enfinger. Enfinger, who has two victories already this season, competes for Legacy co-owner Maury Gallagher's team, GMS Racing.

"Noah's health is the highest of priorities and we commend him for making the decision to sit out this weekend," team co-owners Gallagher and Jimmie Johnson said in a joint statement. "We are appreciative that Grant was available and willing to step in since the Truck Series is off this weekend."

Enfinger will be making his Cup Series debut during Sunday's Toyota / Save Mart 350. The 2015 ARCA Menards Series champion has spent the majority of the last eight years in the Truck Series, and he's currently in his sixth full-time campaign. Enfinger has nine career victories with a best championship result of fourth in 2020.

"My thoughts are with Noah, I know how much he loves this team and the guys on it," Enfinger said. "I’m happy to help out Legacy Motor Club and the No. 42 team."

Earlier this year, when Enfinger was asked about Johnson becoming a partial owner of the Cup team, he didn't hide the fact that he’d like to someday get an opportunity in a Cup car.

"At the end of the day, my job is to win races and a championship," Enfinger said. "That's my focus to do that in the Truck Series. If an opportunity comes along to do that in an Xfinity car or a Cup car, that's great. But I’ve worked so hard and so long to get in a situation exactly like I’m in this year that I’m not going to let outside influences change any of my mindset. We need to dominate the truck season, win races and the truck championship.

"Throughout the course of my career, I’d say I’ve had limited ways of making my own path or coming up with opportunities. More or less, opportunities found me. I had a great opportunity a year and a half ago, when I had some choices to make in the Truck Series garage, and it felt good to be welcomed to a team like GMS Racing."

Gragson's No. 42 team currently sits 32nd in the standings with an average finish of 28.5. It is unknown how many races the rookie driver will miss beyond Sonoma.

Last year, 23XI Racing's Kurt Busch suffered a concussion and the injury forced him to retire from full-time racing. Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman also suffered a concussion, causing him to miss the final five races of the 2022 season.

Dr. Jonathan Gelber, a sports medicine specialist and author of Tiger Woods's Back and Tommy John's Elbow: Injuries and Tragedies That Transformed Careers, Sports, and Society, has studied Nascar's safety initiatives since Dale Earnhardt's death in 2001.

"Any time driver safety is being addressed, we should applaud those who seek to do so and especially those that use science rather than reaction to solve a problem," Dr. Gelber said in October. "We saw this reaction following the death of Dale Earnhardt."

On Wednesday, just prior to Gragson's diagnosis, Nascar announced major changes to the Next Gen car.

"We’ve taken a lot of the steel structural members and removed material from key elements to make this structure less stiff," Dr. John Patalak, vice president of safety engineering at Nascar, said. "We have slots on both sides, we have deleted some cross members between the upright mounts and we’ve treated some of the areas down low that are some of the first to contact the wall on the front clip. We’ve also added slots to this ballast container as well as some holes, and it's all an effort to increase the amount of displacement we’re getting out of the car and to reduce the accelerations that the driver is experiencing."