“He Seemed Off”—NASCAR Insider Unearths the Bright Side of Noah Gragson’s Concussion Amid Worrying Next Gen Safety Concerns From Bubba Wallace Insider

Once again, the NASCAR community witnessed the dark side of racing. Rookie sensation and Jimmie Johnson‘s  Cup Series driver Noah Gragson couldn’t be at the Sonoma road course as the youngster fell victim to a vicious concussion during the race at WWT Raceway.

Though Legacy Motor Club roped in the Truck Series driver, Grant Enfingerm, from GMS Racing to replace the #42 driver for Sonoma, the discussions around Gragson’s injury are still raging. Recently, Kaulig Racing spotter Brett Griffin revealed his thoughts on the unfortunate incident and also shared the brighter side of the whole ordeal.

In the latest episode of the popular Door Bumper Clear podcast, NASCAR spotters Freddie Kraft, Brett Griffin, and TJ Majors joined Karsyn Elledge (substituting for Casey Boat) in the studio to discuss the recent happenings in the NASCAR nation.

Brett Griffin reveals the bright side of things as he explains the Noah Gragson situation

Noah Gragson had to pit because of a horrific crash at WWTR. The sudden brake rotor failure caused the driver to slam into the outer wall sideways, taking the brunt of the impact to his head. Hence, spectators and viewers were surprised to see him standing in the pit lane, talking to reporters after the crash.

Though he retired quickly from the race as he visited the infield car center, the 25-year-old developed concussion-like symptoms days after. Eventually, things got worse as the team had to let the driver rest following the horrendous wreck that was very similar to Kurt Busch‘s that had left the driver with serious concussion-like symptoms and forced him into an early retirement.

Reacting to the incident, Griffin revealed his take. he said, “I thought he was concussed when he came out to do his interview post-race, I was really surprised and I’ve told this to Freddie in a text message, I was very surprised to see him standing there in front of a camera, doing an interview. And in his interview, he seemed off and obviously, it took a couple of days for the symptoms to come forward,” 

With the rookie sensation out in such a fashion, Griffin also opened up about the good side of things, Griffin elaborated on Toyota’s (Legacy Motor Club’s 2024 partner) invaluable chunk of data, which will be helpful. “Here’s a good thing for Noah though, I’ve spoken to some people in the industry, Toyota does an amazing job of baselining their drivers so they have a lot, they have a lot of data that they can go back and look at to see how bad was this concussion.”

READ MORE: Denny Hamlin Demands a Major Sonoma Change Detrimental to the Next Gen Cars After Uncharacteristic Disaster

Wishing Gragson a speedy recovery, Griffin mentioned the reality of the sport, the dark side of racing, as he underlined how fortunate Noah Gragson is in this case.

Griffin uncovers the ugly side of the sport

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As the conversation took on a turn toward the dangers of racing and how things can go wrong in a split second, the trio grew serious face as they talked about concussions and the reality of the sport. Rookie Gragson’s crash reminded fans of Kurt Busch’s horrendous crash at Pocono last year.

The two incidents had some similarities: both cars hit the wall with the weakest spot of the chassis, the backside. While elder Busch’s #45 car clearly hit the wall rear side, Gragson found himself in a similar situation when he lost control of his car and hit the wall sideways, taking the force of the impact to his head. Griffin later on reflected the sad reality of the sport when he spoke about concussions.

He said, “We’re always gonna have concussions because your brain is gonna bounce off of your skull when you are hitting the wall at 200 miles an hour.  You can’t put enough stuff in these cars to make that not happen, what we do have now though is ability and awareness to say, ‘Noah you don’t have to go out and race, man.”

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