NASCAR Star Noah Gragson Apologizes After Being Suspended For Social Media Activity

NASCAR dri­ver Noah Grag­son has been indef­i­nite­ly sus­pend­ed by his rac­ing team, JR Motor­sports, after lik­ing a dis­taste­ful social media post that mocked George Floy­d’s death. JR Motor­sports quick­ly denounced Grag­son’s actions, say­ing they “do not rep­re­sent the val­ues of our team.”

Noah Grag­son, a top up-and-com­ing star in the NASCAR Cup Series, had been sched­uled to com­pete in Sun­day’s Fire­Keep­ers Casi­no 400 at Michi­gan Inter­na­tion­al Speed­way. How­ev­er, Josh Berry will now replace Grag­son for the race after his suspension.

Grag­son apol­o­gized for his “lack of atten­tion and actions on social media,” say­ing in a statement,“I under­stand the sever­i­ty of this sit­u­a­tion. I love and appre­ci­ate every­one. I try to treat every­one equal­ly no mat­ter who they are. I messed up plain and simple.”

The social media post that Grag­son liked showed an image from “The Lit­tle Mer­maid” fea­tur­ing the char­ac­ter Sebas­t­ian the crab with Floy­d’s face super­im­posed and a cap­tion that mocked Floy­d’s death. While the details of when Grag­son liked the offen­sive post are unclear, his rac­ing team took swift action after becom­ing aware of the situation.

Noah Grag­son is a ris­ing star in NASCAR who has achieved suc­cess ear­ly in his Cup Series career, rou­tine­ly plac­ing high in recent races. How­ev­er, his sus­pen­sion serves as an exam­ple of the con­se­quences dri­vers can face for offen­sive social media activ­i­ty that does not rep­re­sent the val­ues of the sport. Grag­son now has an oppor­tu­ni­ty for per­son­al growth and to redeem him­self through his actions going forward.