Race Weekend Central

Noah Gragson Attempting Daytona 500 With Beard Motorsports

Noah Gragson will attempt to make the Daytona 500 with Beard Motorsports for the second year in a row, the team announced Nov. 16.

Gragson will attempt to qualify Beard’s part-time No. 62 in the season-opening NASCAR Cup Series race next year. He also did so in 2021, failing to get the car into the 40-car field after the Duels.

“I’m so happy to have this opportunity to return to Daytona with Beard Motorsports,” Gragson said in a team release. “It was good to get a taste of Cup racing in last year’s Duel, but it left us all wanting more. We’ve got some unfinished business down there.”

Added team evp Amie Beard: “To say that we can’t wait to get back to Daytona is a massive understatement. From the moment my father founded this race team, we all took a tremendous amount of pride in showing up and performing right alongside the established teams in the sport. Last year didn’t go the way we wanted, but that’s just made us more motivated to return.”

See also
Beard Motorsports Planning 2022 Daytona 500 Return

The No. 62 attempted just one race, the Daytona 500, in 2021, after generally running all superspeedway Cup events in previous seasons with Brendan Gaughan, who is now the organization’s vp of racing operations. Team owner Mark Beard died just weeks before the 2021 Daytona 500.

Earlier this year, Beard announced it would attempt all of the superspeedway races in the series in 2022. Its driver for the other starts has not yet been announced.

Gragson will pull double duty at Daytona International Speedway; he’ll also run the full NASCAR Xfinity Series season with JR Motorsports for the fourth straight year. In 2021, he finished third in points with three wins, 13 top fives and 20 top 10s.

About the author

Rutherford is the managing editor of Frontstretch, a position he gained in 2015 after serving on the editing staff for two years. At his day job, he's a journalist covering music and rock charts at Billboard. He lives in New York City, but his heart is in Ohio -- you know, like that Hawthorne Heights song.

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