Noah Gragson
Noah Gragson celebrates winning at Sonoma Raceway for what's now the ARCA Menards Series West on June 22, 2019. (NASCAR)

K&N Catch-Up: What We Learned In Sonoma

www.arcaracing.com June 24, 2019

SONOMA, Calif. — Wine Country and relaxation are synonymous. But the K&N Pro Series West event, round six of 2019, was anything but, as multiple overtime attempts and black flags made for storylines aplenty following the 50-plus lap show in California.

A familiar face earned a trip to Victory Lane with a very familiar group on road courses, black flags wound up being the talk of the town and the championship standings experienced a shakeup.

Here is everything we learned from the Procore 200 at Sonoma Raceway.

Procore 200: Race Results | Race Recap | Video | Photo Gallery

Gragson and JPR Back In Victory Lane 

The record keeps getting more and more impressive.

Jefferson Pitts Racing added yet another trophy to their road course collection on Saturday, as Noah Gragson won the Procore 200 after a restart violation negated Ryan Preece’s victory.

JPR has won 10 of the last 11 K&N Pro Series events on road courses, an astounding statistic. From 2016-2018, they won eight in succession, spanning three different drivers (Gragson, Will Rodgers and Kevin Harvick) from Utah, to New Jersey, to Watkins Glen and Sonoma.

“I think they‘ve put a lot of time and effort into their oval stuff, but I don‘t know what it is,” Gragson said. “This JPR team, they always have really good drivers in their cars. (Ryan) Preece and (Austin) Dillon are no slouches, they‘re Cup drivers and they‘ve won some big races. Having good race cars and good drivers is a big part of it.”

Gragson is no stranger to winning with Jefferson Pitts on road courses, this being his fourth career victory turning right and left.

“The setup hasn’t changed in awhile, seven or eight years,” he said. “A lot of the credit goes to Greg Pursley when (the team) was Gene Price Motorsports. He kind of developed this package with Jerry Pitts, my crew chief, and its been extremely close to how it was back in the day, just fine tuned tweaks to make things better.”

The No. 7 Switch Chevrolet team had to do a lot of that on Friday and Saturday morning. Despite the speed shown on paper, Gragson admitted the car was nowhere near the top of the list when it comes to best vehicles he’s driven in his K&N career.

“Honestly it‘s probably the worst one I‘ve ever had,” he said. “All through practice, I know we were fastest by like 1.2 seconds, but overall I wasn’t satisfied. I was kind of down on how this race would be because it wasn’t the feel I wanted. The General Tire is a different tire. It’s just different handling like a knife edge. You barely slip over that tire peak and oversaturate it and you kind of are slipping and sliding for three to four laps before you can get it covered again and cooled down. We battled a lot of adversity but it was a never quit mentality that kept us in the fight. Somehow ended up working in our favor there at the end.”

Preece’s Heartbreak

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Sunoco Rookie of the Year contender Ryan Preece led 33 laps and seemed to be on his way to his first career K&N Pro Series victory.

However, NASCAR deemed he jumped the final restart, black flagged the No. 47 Clorox Chevrolet and he finished 20th.

“What are you gonna do? It‘s their sandbox, they‘re gonna do what they want,” a frustrated Preece said. “They manipulated the race at the end of the day and we won that race. Jumping a restart is going two car lengths early. Putting a solid restart together, getting traction, kind of playing a game of chess. Understanding what gear someone else is in versus what you‘re in so you can get the best restart you can. It‘s part of it. You might as well hold my hands behind my back and tie them up if you‘re going to make me go at the same line every single time […] I‘m pissed off. I like to win races. When you get them robbed like that, it‘s some (expletive).”

Preece’s teammate, Gragson, was also penalized for a restart violation of his own earlier on in the event.

“I guess it came back around there at the end with the No. 47,” Gragson said. “I don‘t like winning a race like that. But an eye for an eye, and it made it extremely challenging because I had to work overly hard to get back to the front in the late stages. The start of the second stage, I burned my tires up to make passes and get up there. I don‘t know if I had anything for the No. 47 or the No. 50 (Daniel Hemric).”

Drivers were also frustrated with the running order reverting back to the restart order when a caution flew before the white flag was displayed. Per the rulebook, the field is reverted back to the order of the last completed green flag lap and not where they were when the caution flag flies.

“If I was able to keep my position from when I passed them under green instead of passing them again, we could‘ve ran with them,” Gragson said. “The last few green/white/checkereds sucked. I don’t know if they need to revisit the rulebook for these road courses or not, but it makes it extremely challenging when they revert the field back and you don‘t get rewarded, you almost get penalized for passing somebody on a green/white/checkered when the caution comes out.”

Points Shakeup

For awhile, it looked like Derek Kraus’ stranglehold on the championship had gone up in flames.

And it had, as Kraus’ fuel pump failed, forcing him to pit road for repairs. As the No. 16 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota team frantically worked under the hood, he went three laps down. A huge hit in the standings, it appeared.

But Kraus and the team scratched and clawed back onto the lead lap, garnering the free pass three consecutive times past the halfway break. On the final restart, he was 12th and in position to rebound for a miraculous top 10.

But contact from a competitor sent him spinning off course and saw him cross the finish line in 19th. However, Kraus maintains the championship points lead by one over his Bill McAnally Racing teammate Hailie Deegan, who finished eighth after starting on the pole.

Trevor Huddleston sits third, 11 points behind Kraus and Jagger Jones is fourth, 13 points back.

2019 K&N Pro Series West Standings

Notes

  • Will Rodgers finished sixth in his 2019 K&N debut for Levin Racing. After starting eighth, Rodgers ran inside the top five all day. Despite losing power steering on Lap 10, he earned his 20th top 10 finish of his career.
  • In his K&N Pro Series debut for Bill McAnally Racing, Lawless Alan finished 24th after crashing hard with eight laps to go following contact from his teammate, Hailie Deegan.
  • Brittney Zamora (29th, electrical) Travis Milburn (31st, engine) were two of 13 cars to not finish the race.

Gragson Preece Track 062419