Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Noah Gragson earns first Camping World Truck Series win with late pass at Martinsville

NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Texas Roadhouse 200 Presented by Alpha Energy Solutions - Practice

MARTINSVILLE, VA - OCTOBER 27: Noah Gragson, driver of the #18 Switch Toyota, practices for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Texas Roadhouse 200 at Martinsville Speedway on October 27, 2017 in Martinsville, Virginia. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

Getty Images

MARTINSVILLE, Virginia – Noah Gragson scored the first win of his Camping World Truck Series career, passing Matt Crafton on a restart with 10 laps remaining at Martinsville Speedway.

The Kyle Busch Motorsports driver took first from the outside lane on a Lap 191 restart in the Texas Roadhouse 200.

“It’s really tough racing against these veterans,” Gragson told FS1. “You can’t pass on the outside at Martinsville, but I did it.”

Gragson, 19, celebrated by climbing the fronstretch fence at the 0.526-mile oval (and then vomiting after his descent).

“To be racing here in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, it’s a privilege,” he said after the fourth top five of his rookie season. “All those hours of hard work, I knew to myself this morning, I knew I could get it done. I’ve known it this whole year and I told myself I’m going to get that trophy today, and that’s what we did.”

Crafton finished second, but the playoff-eligible driver said it was “salt in the wound” after losing the lead on the restart. The race is the opener of the Round of 6 that will determine the four drivers who advance to the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and a victory would have put Crafton in the championship four.

“(Gragson) had a perfect restart, and I sucked,” a dejected Crafton said.

Johnny Sauter, also in the playoffs, finished third.

The finishing positions of the other playoff drivers: Christopher Bell (eighth), Ben Rhodes (ninth), Austin Cindric (10th) and John Hunter Nemechek, who finished 30th after crashing.