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NASCAR: Noah Gragson Looks Ahead to Dash 4 Cash Opener at Richmond Raceway

Next week’s NASCAR event marks not only the 7th Cup Series race of the season but also the start of the Dash 4 Cash midseason program. An addition to the Xfinity Series, the Dash 4 Cash program awards the top competing driver $100,000 for each contest in a four-race lineup. This year, the program kicks off in the Richmond Raceway, and last year’s Dash 4 Cash champ, Noah Gragson, is positioned for another strong opening bid.

In the 2021 Dash 4 Cash, Noah Gragson claimed an astounding three of four total prizes. This year’s looking promising as well. Gragson is entering Richmond as the series points leader with five top-five finishes in six races this season.

“I think today, this is one of my I guess worst road courses,” Gragson said of COTA. “We put in a lot of hard work over the wintertime and this weekend. [We’re] trying to be better and felt like we executed well as a team and got a lot of momentum with just the start of this year.”

“We’re just going to try to keep going,” Gragson continued. “We’ve had success at Richmond and Martinsville, the two Dash 4 Cash races up first. Hopefully, we can go have a solid day next weekend.”

Sam Mayer Talks COTA and Richmond Raceway With Teammate Noah Gragson

Fellow JR Motorsports driver, Sam Mayer, will be competing in the Dash 4 Cash program in the Richmond Raceway with Noah Gragson. Despite 2022 being his first full NASCAR Xfinity Series season, Mayer has already proven his perseverance behind the wheel.

“I was really determined to get that fifth place because I wanted another top five on my resume,” Mayer said of COTA. “I had to run the 31 [Myatt Snider] down, and we battled for like the last third of a lap, side by side pretty much the whole time.”

“It was actually pretty cool,” Mayer continued. “It was fun racing hard, racing clean, we’re still cool obviously. I got into him a little bit in the last corner and just shoved him up a little bit to get that run. But it was good, hard racing. Obviously, I wanted that top five, and I’ll do anything to take it.”

Sam Mayer’s had a tough start to the season, with four finishes outside the top 20. On Saturday, however, his luck began to change. The No. 1 driver managed to snag a top-five finish in the Pit Boss 250 at COTA, which earned him a place in next week’s Dash 4 Cash.

“The look on my face can say it all really,” said Mayer, grinning from ear to ear. “We were in such a hole going into this one, and not by anything we did on our fault. It’s just things happen in racing and you can’t do anything about it. We were in a pretty deep hole, but we did a really good job of digging out of it today. Obviously, we have a lot more digging to do, but this is a fantastic start.”