Noah Gragson reveals the one celebrity who made him starstruck

Noah Gragson may be hoping to become a household name in NASCAR, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t get starstruck every so often.

For this week’s edition of 12 Questions, Jeff Gluck of The Athletic sat down with Gragson, and it made for a fascinating conversation. While Gragson explained that he’s not one to gawk at celebrities, one in particular — country music star Hardy — got him feeling giddy at the track.

“It’s funny you ask that, because I’ve never really gotten starstruck before,” explained Gragson. “I’ve always tried to play it cool and just think of everybody as a human being. But Hardy (country singer) came to the track (at Nashville), and I’m a huge Hardy fan, like play his songs all the time. And so he was at the track and came by the hauler, and he had to really carry the conversation. And I could tell that he could tell that I wasn’t carrying the conversation.

“So he’s like, ‘Where are you from? Never met a guy from Vegas before, that’s crazy. You’re really from Vegas?’ Just trying to kill time, you know? And I’m just, like, tweaking out. Like, ‘Holy s—, this is Hardy!’ Had a loss of words for sure.”

So Gragson is like the rest of us. There are some celebrities who check his boxes, and Hardy’s one of them.

Over the course of his time in the Cup Series, Gragson has struggled at times, but he still remains one of the favorites of fans looking for an up and coming driver. However, Gragson has slowed down his posting on social media since moving on up, a subject he touched on while speaking with Gluck, as well.

“I’ve kind of just stopped sharing. You can’t win with the corporate side of the sport. I’m not saying it’s bad; that’s what keeps our sport going. But if I don’t have anything positive to say about, ‘Hey, we had a great race,’ then I don’t even tweet anything out,” Gragson said. “I still battle the fine line. You hang out with buddies and go to dinner and take a picture. Someone’s got a cocktail in their hand, it’s a problem. And it might just be a Coca-Cola or something, but I definitely still fight the same thing. Now it’s kind of transitioned into, ‘Everything you’ve done on social media got you here and that’s why you’re here, but you can’t do that right now.’ And that sucks.

“I definitely want to be myself, but I’m burnt out, too. Not in a bad way, but it’s not my priority. It used to be higher up on my priority list. Now I’m just trying to finish a race. It feels like everyone asks you, ‘You won all these races last year and you can’t even finish a race this year.’ It’s like, s—, I’m trying to work every day, you know?”

Noah Gragson may be facing struggles right now, but we’re willing to be he comes out the other side smelling like roses, and listening to Hardy, of course. It’ll be fun to watch transpire.