Poor Noah Gragson was forced to miss the Gander Outdoors 150 at Pocono Raceway but will still get to race for the Truck Series championship.
When most of us get a stomach ailment of some sort, it’s hard to do our jobs. And those jobs don’t generally involve driving a Kyle Busch Motorsports truck at high speed around Pocono Raceway like Noah Gragson.
Though Gragson entered the weekend second in NASCAR Camping World Truck Series points and locked into the championship hunt with a victory already in hand, he was replaced by Erik Jones for the Gander Outdoors 150 on Saturday. Why? Gragson was simply too sick to race.
As explained by the Fox Sports TV crew, Gragson had already felt ill on Friday, receiving IV fluids in an attempt to be ready for the race. But even after receiving similar treatment on Saturday, he was no better, and shots on television showed the Kyle Busch Motorsports driver so sick that he was laying on the ground near pit road. That’s a feeling we can all sympathize with, unfortunately, and Gragson was no cleared by NASCAR to participate.
KBM found a pretty sweet replacement, though, in the form of Erik Jones. The 2015 Truck Series champion while driving for Kyle Busch Motorsports, Jones hopped back in a truck for the first time since Gateway Motorsports Park in 2016, and his laps behind the pace car were his first in the 18.
Despite telling the announce team that it might take him a while to get used to the vehicle, Jones was able to make his way from the rear of the field all the way into the top 10 prior to the end of Stage 1. As is only right, Gragson received a waiver from NASCAR and his playoff eligibility will remain intact. If he’s in the running for the championship, the 20-year-old will be able to look back at Pocono weekend as a mere blip, though he might not laugh about it given the circumstances.