Gragson’s been hot approaching Kansas Speedway double of Xfinity Saturday, Cup Sunday

There’s no busier driver in NASCAR than Noah Gragson. It’s not even close.

Some drivers may double dip or even triple up among race series. Gragson takes the full plunge.

Gragson, a full-time driver and Xfinity Series championship contender in the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet, also runs part-time for two different Cup teams, Kaulig Racing and Beard Motorsports.

On top of that, he’s testing cars for his new full-time Cup ride for 2023 in the No. 42 Petty GMS Racing Chevrolet.

“There’s a lot going on; we’re busy with everything,” said Gragson, who will race in both the Kansas Lottery 300 Xfinity series race on Saturday at Kansas Speedway and the Hollywood Casino 400 Cup race on Sunday in the No. 16 Chevrolet for Kaulig.

“It’s a lot to manage and a lot to deal with, but luckily I have a great team around me to make my job a little bit easier,” said Gragson. “The Cup schedule and full-time Xfinity, and testing with Petty GMS, it’s a lot, but I’m enjoying it. We’re getting into the playoffs, and which I’m excited about. And I’m really looking forward to what’s coming up in the future. “

Gragson, of Las Vegas, comes to Kansas Speedway having clinched a spot in the upcoming Xfinity playoffs and his four wins — at Pocono, Talladega and Phoenix and last week at Darlington — are second-most in the series.

Gragson, 24, is fourth in the standings but would be third had it not been for an incident at Road America where he was docked 30 points and fined $35,000 for intentionally crashing Sage Karam and triggering a wreck that caused 11 other cars to crash.

The incident, which also drew criticism from car owner Dale Earnhardt Jr., wasn’t Gragson’s first skirmish on the track. Last September in an Xfinity race at Atlanta, he traded post-race punches with Daniel Hemric when they disagreed on pit-stop decorum.

“When you get in the moment, things get intense, and trying to keep your cool, is important,” Gragson said of his temperament. “We try to live and learn from the past mistakes and always try to do better. I’ve got a great group around me that supports me no matter what, and when challenges and adversities come up like that, it’s how you can become better from the situation.”

Gragson’s intensity, as well as his nine career Xfinity wins and third place in last year’s Xfinity playoffs, impressed team Petty GMS Motorsports co-owner Richard “The King” Petty, who has been searching for years for a title contender.

“We might have to calm him down a little bit, but the way that Cup racing is now, he’s got to be aggressive,” Petty said when Gragson signed last month. “I just hope that we can calm him down where he’s not too aggressive, but he’s going to be in a learning process because Xfinity is a little bit different crowd of people. When it comes to Cup, he’s going to have to learn to respect his other drivers, and he’s going to have to respect them.

“He’s now able to run for a (Xfinity) championship, and that’s what we’re looking for … getting the caliber of driver who can championships.”

Gragson may have provided a glimpse into how he will perform at the Cup level two weeks ago in the Cup race at Daytona. Piloting the underfunded and outmanned Beard Motorsports No. 62 , Gragson stayed patient behind the mayhem ahead of him and vaulted from 30th at the start of the third stage to a fifth-place finish.

It was his best result in 11 career Cup races and the best finish in 20 Cup starts for Beard Motorsports, which has exactly one full-time employee.

That’s right, one.

“One guy works on the cars,” Gragson said of the No. 62’s crew chief, Daren Shaw. “When we go to the race tracks, we have some volunteers who help push the car and work on it, but throughout the year, they’ve got one guy, Daren Shaw. He’s the crew chief, he’s everything. One guy puts that whole race car together.

“It’s a pretty big deal to go up against these organizations with 500 to 600 employees. So for the goals that we have, the budget that we’re on, and the race team that we are, it’s pretty rewarding to be kicking yourself over a fifth-place finish in the Cup Series.”

Until Gragson’s fifth-place at Daytona, his best Cup result in 10 previous Cup starts — all this season — was 18th last May at Kansas Speedway, where he has a love-hate relationship with the track.

Gragson won the 2018 trucks race, leading 128 of the 167 laps, and he had the strong Cup effort last May. But in four Xfinity starts, his best result was 13th in 2019, and he’s failed to finish his last two starts.

“If you look at the results, we (stink) at Kansas,” Gragson said. “It’s my worst race track in Xfinity. Even though we have speed and have led laps there, most of those races, it seems we find ourselves in trouble …

“In 2019, we got the lead on the green-white checkered, and had a flat right rear tire and didn’t finish very well, and we missed it there in 2020 early in the race. We went back there in the fall, and I wrecked on lap 10 …and last year, I got wrecked again, running third. I got collected in an accident, none of my own doing

“It’s not the stat I want from Kansas, but every time we go there, I say, ‘I’m going to be optimistic about this place,’ and something goes wrong. I know if we can have a race that just goes right, we’re going to be really good.”