On the track, Noah Gragson has no friends.
Few are as aggressive as Gragson, the the latest addition to Front Row Motorsports who just completed his first full season in the NASCAR Cup Series in the No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford.
Off the track, it’s a different story. Once the helmets are off, the smoke settles and the rage of driving 200 mph in 120-plus degree conditions subsides, Gragson and a fraternity of fellow drivers can commiserate and decompress with the accompaniment of a few adult beverages.
“Yeah, you made it there,” Gragson said.
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A new wave of drivers is finding their place at the highest levels of NASCAR, a group that includes Gragson, Riley HerbstZane Smith, Todd Gilliland and Harrison Burton among others. All are in their 20s and striving for successful careers as stock car drivers. The intensity on the track intensifies with every lap recorded, every slammed door and every flag waved. But a compromise will have to be found once the checkered flag is displayed.
“They say bring your friends to the track,” Gragson said before the season finale at Phoenix Raceway. “But it’s a grueling, exhausting schedule and you’re on everyone’s nerves 38 weeks a year. And you have to be with them 38 weeks a year. …So we can find that balance and run hard. We sometimes put ourselves in bad positions, and it doesn’t work. But I feel like we all do a good job of finding that balance and that separation between, hey, when we’re on the track, we’re here to compete against each other when we put the helmets on. But when we walk through the doors, we support each other at the end of the day.
The collection of competitors – including Gragson, Smith, Herbst, Gilliland, Burton and full-time 2025 Xfinity Series players Christian Eckes And Sheldon Credo — shared a rental house together in Arizona after the 2024 campaign ended, all in an effort to relax.
“It’s hard to have friends in this industry,” Smith said. “But luckily we have a group of friends who have a similar mindset: Hey, let’s leave it all out there, and it’s work. Be mad at each other on the track, but put that behind you and move forward next week. We are adults. We can resolve it or whatever. But it’s really fun to have a few beers and hang out after races with a group of friends.
Once his rookie year in the Cup Series ended, Smith added to Phoenix how important his friend group has become. The 25-year-old piloted the No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet in 2024 through a deal with Trackhouse Racing that was announced as a multi-year contract. However, Trackhouse announced at the end of August that Smith would not return to the program in 2025, leaving Smith to look for options in the coming year. Throughout this time, he benefited from the support of those around him.
“Time and time again, it’s the same group that’s behind me, and I’ll never forget that,” said Smith, the 2022 Truck Series champion. “I hope I can have easy days, because I remember always from those who accompanied me during these (difficult) times. Super lucky for those, and they know who they are. But we will keep moving forward and everything will be fine.
The close bond between these riders should not be confused with favors on the track, however. Burton, who became the first of the group to score a NASCAR Cup Series victory in August at Daytona, said he has seen a feeling that racers who are friends “aren’t racing as hard as they used to.”
“No chance,” he said before the NASCAR Awards in Charlotte. “I can promise you, we compete harder. I can think off the top of my head how many times me and Todd Gilliland have met, me and Noah having our fight or race really hard.
Indeed, Burton had no problem swapping the two words and punches with Gragson after a 2020 Xfinity race at Kentucky Speedway after contact put Burton into the wall.
“We’ve all had times where we didn’t like each other,” said Burton, who returns to Xfinity competition in 2025. “Like me and Noah fought and are now friends, right? And we were friends before that and we are friends after that. And I think it just shows that there’s a brotherhood there, and we all come from the same roots and we race and we get along. We’re all just friends, right? But then when the headset comes on, we’re fighting really, really, really hard, and obviously to the point where we’ll fight as well.
Next season, Gragson and Gilliland will reunite as teammates at Front Row Motorsports. The two previously raced together in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series for Kyle Busch Motorsports in 2018, but their connection goes back even further, competing in what is now known as the ARCA Menards Series East with many fierce battles there -low and on the latest models.
“It’s been really cool to see Todd’s evolution as a driver and his craft as a driver. It’s great to see,” Gragson said. “All of us drivers are all competing against each other, but at the end of the day we want what’s best for each other. We don’t want to see anyone else fail. We want to fight, but we don’t want to see anyone fail. And I think Todd has done an incredible job throughout his career and building his brand and the driver that he has become. So I think we can work together very well next year. We’re good friends, which helps. We know each other. We’ve been teammates before. I think it will be a very easy transition.
