At only 20 years of age, Taylor Gray is one of NASCAR’s brightest young stars.
Competing for Rookie of the Year (ROTY) honors in the NASCAR Xfinity Series for Joe Gibbs Racing, the Denver, North Carolina-native has been around NASCAR’s National Series for several years, and despite some really close calls, has never parked it in Victory Lane.
Gray’s two most recent trips to Martinsville have been pretty devastating in that quest to secure a victory in NASCAR, as both races have featured late-race contact that thwarted incredible opportunities to win.
Last Fall’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event at the half-mile paperclip saw Gray take over the lead on a late-race restart, while also having a tire advantage on his TRICON Garage Toyota Tundra, only for Christian Eckes to nerf him out of the way in the next set of corners.
What followed was a highly publicized march down the frontstretch at Martinsville, where even though many expected some physicality in Victory Lane, the youngster just ended up having a discussion (granted, a heated one) with Eckes.
This Spring, having jumped into the NASCAR Xfinity Series, things got a little more bizarre.
Gray dominated the second half of last weekend’s Xfinity Series event at Martinsville, leading 87 laps during the final stage of the race, and was very much in position to win, until a sequence of restarts changed the race’s entire complexion.
With the No. 54 Operation 300 Toyota GR Supra out front, Sammy Smith chose to line up behind Gray on a restart and shipped him into the first corner and out of the lead, just moments before the race’s final caution was displayed.
In NASCAR Overtime, Gray gave it back, although much, much lighter, to Smith, and was able to take the lead back. But, in the final set of corners, Smith launched his JR Motorsports Chevrolet into the corner and wrecked Gray, relegating the Joe Gibbs Racing driver to a 29th-place finish.
There are several drivers on the NASCAR circuit, several of which have much more experience than Gray, that would have flown off the handle because of that move, but the 20-year-old, other than a brief heated discussion with Smith, was able to refrain from doing so.
Smith continued to dig himself a further hole in his post-race interviews, while Gray remained composed. But the Martinsville finish sparked a multi-day conversation about the state of the NASCAR Xfinity Series and the drivers populating it, right now.
The JR Motorsports driver was ultimately fined $25,000 and docked 50 points, while Gray was fined $5,000 for what NASCAR cited as “infield care center conduct”.
Asked about the incident Tuesday by Dave Moody on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, and whether the beef between himself and Sammy Smith would continue, Gray gave an answer that showed a ton of respect and maturity — and based on the social media reaction, gained him some fans.
“Me personally, I have too much respect for Dale [Earnhardt, Jr.], Kelley [Earnhardt-Miller], and everybody that works at [JR Motorsports] just to start going and wrecking their cars and their equipment just to prove a point. If Sammy owned his own car and worked on his own car, then I’d probably be telling you a different story.”
“Maybe that’s the only way he can learn, but hopefully NASCAR’s actions and the penalty they gave him, and maybe talking with some of his peers and some people that helped guide him down the road have told him that that’s not right, and he needs to clean it up,” added Gray.
Taylor Gray: An Exception to The Assumption
Since the out-of-control events of last Saturday’s Xfinity Series event, there has been ample conversation about the state of the second-tier series and what has happened to turn the beloved racing division into the dumpster fire that we saw at Martinsville.
For starters, it’s important to realize that this isn’t an issue specific to the NASCAR Xfinity Series – or even just NASCAR for that matter. Many of NASCAR’s local racing divisions, including the ARCA Menards Series, and several short track racing series around the country have this same issue.
Hell, the NASCAR Cup Series isn’t even immune to the occasional shitshow now and again.
It’s a product of a major change that has happened in motorsports over the last couple of decades. While it’s always been expensive to field a racecar, the price tag is now so large that teams are dependent on sponsorship.
During that time, the norm in NASCAR completely flipped. In the 1990s, drivers like Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon were able to be scouted and receive top-tier rides based on their talent, whereas now, a driver more often than not has to have some kind of financial backing or family connection to get said top-tier opportunity.
Now, don’t get me wrong — saying “nothing earned, everything gained” is going to sound like a very old-fashioned opinion, and something you would hear your grandparents say when commenting on a younger generation, but in the world of NASCAR, that statement is becoming truer and truer.
It’s not a talent issue either… the majority of drivers making starts in NASCAR’s National Series (regardless of the check they had to write to get there) are more than capable of getting good results. But instead, it’s an issue of respect — or in this case, lack thereof.
A lack of respect for your competitors, for your equipment, and even for the people on your team who have to put the racecar back together when it gets destroyed in an accident — whether it was your fault or not.
Sure, a big factor in that is a lack of respect, and not having to earn these top-tier seats anymore, but there is another substantial factor, too: these kids are getting into racecars at such a young age.
At just 12 years old, kids can already enter into the zMAX CARS Tour, and by 16 years old, they’re already being boosted up into the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. That’s a pretty young age to be considered a professional in a series that used to feature drivers closer to retirement than they are to the start of their careers.
Now, Taylor Gray did all of these things — competing in the ARCA Menards Series at 15 and making select NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series starts the following season — and while yes, there were some questionable decisions made, four years down the road, the narrative for him is totally different.
It’s important to remember that there are exceptions to every rule.
Gray has undeniably had some help getting to the position he is in right now. His grandfather, Johnny Gray, is a partial owner of TRICON Garage, the team he competed with in ARCA and Trucks, and now has a top-shelf relationship with Toyota.
That relationship has parlayed him into a NASCAR Xfinity Series ride with Joe Gibbs Racing, but after this past weekend in Martinsville, it’s been proven that Gray is mature enough to run in the NASCAR Xfinity Series.
In a week where everybody has been quick to discuss the optics of these so-called “rich kids” or daddy’s money drivers” competing in NASCAR’s National Series, there is also some hard evidence that not everybody with these connections should be lumped into that group.
As for that first NASCAR National Series victory for Gray, there’s no doubt that it should be coming pretty soon.
