It has been a quick start to the 2017 season for Kaz Grala in his first year driving full-time in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.
The 18-year-old Westborough, Mass., native was the polesitter in his introduction to restrictor-plate racing at Daytona and took the checkered flag there on Feb. 24 – the youngest driver to win at Daytona in series history.
Grala thought he had shot at the pole with his 33 Chevrolet and it proved to be the fastest truck at Daytona. But he didn’t expect to win in his first try at a super speedway.
“I definitely wouldn’t have thought with that little experience in that type of racing that I’d be able to come away with the win,” Grala told the Monitor. “I was a little bit worried about our finish. I figured we were getting a top-five, which I would have been stoked about. To come away from my first race with no damage and a top-five, that would have been a score for me.”
He avoided colossal damage on the final lap that left the track wide open for Grala to cruise to Victory Lane. Matt Crafton, a 17-year veteran of the truck series, was suspended mid-air after teammate Ben Rhodes caught his right-rear fender. Crafton floated upside down over traffic as the wreck continued and landed wheels down.
Grala, weaving through the fray, emerged from the smoke with a clear track ahead of him.
“When I cleared the smoke I didn’t see any trucks in front of me, couldn’t see anyone else at all, so I figured that was probably a good thing,” Grala said.
It was the biggest wreck Grala had witnessed while driving. Crafton later described the wreck simply as “last-lap Daytona.”
“That race was not short on drama and craziness, so I was just really happy to have been able to avoid all of that,” Grala said.
Grala escaped Daytona with the pole, the win and 56 points to lead the standings early. He fell back to fourth place (78 points) in the standings on Saturday at Atlanta with a 15th-place finish.
Christopher Bell, like Grala at Daytona, backed up his pole-winning qualifier and finished first in the Active Pest Control 200. He leads the standings with 93 points and two top-10 finishes through the first two races.
The Daytona win relieves some pressure for Grala going forward this season as he is already well positioned for the playoffs. It also helps his name gain more traction with Xfinity and Cup series owners.
But before the opportunity to move up arrives, Grala has more driving to do at this level.
“What I’m focused on right now is learning to drive a mile and a half,” Grala said, pointing to the intermediate tracks, such as Atlanta, that he figures makes up about 40 percent of the truck series schedule.
“I’ve driven short tracks before and now I’ve driven one super speedway, I feel like I’ve got some experience at those places,” he said. “Minimal at the super speedway, but at least some.”
Drivers spend a lot of camera time pumping their sponsors, and that’s fine. In this sport, it’s expected thanks to the folks who pay the bills and build the cars.
That’s why so many ears perked up at Daytona when Kyle Busch pointed a finger straight at Goodyear after a rear tire blew out on his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, causing a wreck that took Busch and several others out of the race.
Dale Earnhardt Jr., in his first race since missing half of 2016 season with concussion symptoms, smashed his front end into Busch during the wreck and left the track two laps later.
“Obviously, Goodyear tires aren’t very good at holding air,” Busch told a FOX reporter following the crash.
The dispute quieted down during the week, but Goodyear came out with their side of the story on Sunday just hours before engines fired for the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta.
Goodyear conducted its own investigation of the wreck – the company does each time a tire goes flat in a race – and concluded both of Busch’s rear tires were inflated when he spun out in Turn 3 at Daytona International Speedway.
“We did not see any cut on the right rear or on the left rear at Daytona, so we took both tires back to (Goodyear headquarters in Akron, Ohio),” said Stu Grant, Goodyear general manager of worldwide racing.
“If you look at the right rear,” Grant said, “the evidence there was a flat spot all the way through to the air … the only way that happens, of course, is if the tire has air in it and it’s spinning and locked up, so there was a flat spot all the way through to the air. The car is spinning and the right rear is definitely up.”
Joe Gibbs Racing was informed of the results from Goodyear’s investigation, Grant said.
Busch, who took the checkered flag in his first of 10 Xfinity Series races on Saturday, had more tire troubles in Atlanta on Sunday morning when a fan passing through the garage area spilled oil onto two tires for Busch’s Toyota.
The tires were washed at the Goodyear building and returned to the team after inspection.
One more note on Busch that is more pressing than a fan’s mistake. His Toyota that won the Xfinity Series Rinnai 250 on Saturday incurred a height violation in the post-race inspection. Officials reported the Toyota’s front end was too low on the right and left sides. NASCAR is expected to hand down penalties Tuesday.
If you’re still not sold on the new racing format, think about this: The top two drivers in the Xfinity Series are Elliott Sadler (70 points) and William Byron (67). They still don’t have a win between them after two races, but Sadler has led 40 laps earning stage points along the way and Byron has two top-10 finishes. Ryan Reed (66 points) won Daytona but fell back to third with his 19-point performance at Atlanta. This system rewards drivers for winning, but it also recognizes a driver’s ability to consistently be a presence in the leading pack.
(Nick Stoico can be reached at 369-3339, nstoico@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @NickStoico.)