{"id":41064,"date":"2022-11-05T20:58:53","date_gmt":"2022-11-06T01:58:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=41064"},"modified":"2022-11-06T14:31:12","modified_gmt":"2022-11-06T20:31:12","slug":"nascar-saturday-phoenix-notebook-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2022\/11\/05\/nascar-saturday-phoenix-notebook-4\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Saturday Phoenix Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Holly Cain<\/em><\/p>\n

NASCAR Wire Service <\/em><\/p>\n

JR Motorsport’s drivers proud of their season despite not winning the title<\/b><\/p>\n

AVONDALE, Ariz. \u2013 Noah Gragson drove his car onto pit road following Saturday\u2019s NASCAR Xfinity Series championship finale, climbed out, slammed his helmet on the roof, put his hands on his hips and look downward in disappointment.<\/p>\n

After a valiant battle \u2013 all 200 laps of the race at Phoenix Raceway – he finished runner-up to season-long rival Ty Gibbs – a mere .397-seconds away from the title capping a career-defining season of triumph and statistical career highlights.<\/p>\n

It hurt. But Gragson remained buoyed by his career-best effort in NASCAR\u2019s spotlight.<\/p>\n

\u201cExecution on pit stops, we just needed to be better as a Bass Pro Shops team, but still proud of everyone\u2019s efforts,” Gragson said as his team surrounded his car and offered up pats-on-the-back and encouragement.<\/p>\n

Moments later, he walked over on pit road and gave Gibbs a handshake \u2013 a major sign of respect considering the intense and fierce relationship between the two rivals, who raced so hard for the championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey did a good job, they beat us,\u201d the 24-year-old Gragson said of the gesture, adding, \u201cI think he has the potential to learn. He\u2019s a great race car driver and I\u2019ve been in those shoes too.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the outside, this championship battle actually looked like a lop-sided advantage for Gragson\u2019s JR Motorsports team, which fielded cars for three of the four title-eligible drivers. Veteran Justin Allgaier finished third, just behind Gragson and their teammate Josh Berry was 13th.<\/p>\n

For much of the race the foursome \u2013 Gibbs, Gragson, Allgaier and Berry \u2013 were some combination of 1-2-3-4 on the racetrack, the truest of championship battles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know why we end up one, two, three, four in these races, if you look at the history of this race \u2013 whether it be here or [past Championship 4 site] Homestead (Fla.) whatever, the final four rise to the top and we were all racing our guts out,” Allgaier said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that anybody lets you go. Maybe I look at it differently, but it was cool having us all four up there battling, obviously I know Josh had that one issue on a restart, but it was cool having us all up there battling and having it as clean as it was tonight.”<\/p>\n

“The hardest part is that no one from JR Motorsports went to Victory Lane,” he added. \u201cI wanted it for everybody that works there. \u2026 we just got beat. But proud of everyone\u2019s efforts all week long.\u201d<\/p>\n

With his runner-up effort Gragson finished the season with eight wins, 21 top-five and 25 top-10 finishes in 33 races, leading more than 1,000 laps. He will drive the No. 42 Petty GMS Chevrolet next year in the NASCAR Cup Series.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can lay my head down after restarting eighth with 25-30 to go and getting up to second and almost having a shot to win the race, I\u2019m content with that,” Gragson said, adding, \u201cI gave my absolute best, I drove my butt off, I tried my best and gave it everything I had, just got beat. Can\u2019t really hang my head after the season we\u2019ve had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Allgaier\u2019s third-place finish in the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet was his 15th top-five and 23rd top-10 finish of the year. He won three races. Berry, was also a three-time winner in the No. 8 JR Motorsports Chevrolet, earning 11 top-five and 20 top-10 finishes in his first complete season in the series.<\/p>\n

Austin Hill wins NASCAR Xfinity Series Sunoco Rookie of the Year honors<\/b><\/p>\n

Austin Hill has won the NASCAR Xfinity Series Sunoco Rookie of the Year title \u2013 earning a pair of victories in his first season driving the No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet.<\/p>\n

Hill, 28, of Winston, Ga., had an especially strong first full season in the series; winning the season-opener at Daytona International Speedway and then again at his home track in Atlanta this summer- the only rookie to win a race in 2022.<\/p>\n

He scored a ninth-place finish in the Phoenix finale and wraps up the rookie title with 11 top-five and 21 top-10 finishes.<\/p>\n

Hill\u2019s RCR teammate Sheldon Creed finished second in the rookie points, followed by Kyle Sieg and Jesse Iwuji.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain NASCAR Wire Service  JR Motorsport’s drivers proud of their season despite not winning the title AVONDALE, Ariz. \u2013 Noah Gragson drove his car onto pit road following Saturday\u2019s NASCAR Xfinity Series championship finale, climbed out, slammed his helmet on the roof, put his hands on his hips and look downward in disappointment. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":41058,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[16,181,395],"class_list":["post-41064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-xfinity-series","tag-phoenix-raceway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/GettyImages-1439331510-1-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-aGk","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41064"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41065,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41064\/revisions\/41065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}