Noah Gragson made history at the Daytona 500, just not the kind any driver wants. As the first driver ever disqualified under a new rule, his embarrassing mistake quickly became cannon fodder for Dale Jr.’s notoriously candid podcast crew, with Connor Zilisch not mincing his words.

NASCAR experts shared thoughts on Noah Gragson

In the recent Door Bumper Clear podcast by Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s Dirty Mo Media, Freddie Kraft, Karsyn Elledge, and Tommy Baldwin sat with Cup driver Connor Zilisch to discuss the recently concluded Daytona 500. While they were at it, they weighed in on the infamous Gragson incident.

“Like I was with him after it [the incident], and he was walking down pit road right after qualifying, and nobody had told him that he got a penalty. And people kept walking up to him and being like, ‘Dude, your hand is out the window,” Connor Zilisch recalled in the podcast.

Gragson only realized the severity of the situation when Jamie Little from FOX spoke to him.

“He’s like, ‘Yeah, dude, don’t I have nice gloves? Like, aren’t my gloves sick?’ And they’re like no, dude, like, your hand was out the window. He’s like, ‘Yeah, I know, we always do that.’ And it took until Jamie Little walked up to him to realize that he actually got a penalty for him, and that wasn’t allowed,” Zilisch further added.

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While Zilisch shared the anecdote, Kraft and Elledge summed up their thoughts on the FRM driver. Kraft, the renowned NASCAR spotter, said, “I mean, starting with qualifying out, was anybody surprised to see Noah was the one that would f*** that?”

Elledge agreed with Kraft and said, “If anybody is going to do it, it’s him.” Notably, NASCAR banned the rule just days ahead of the Daytona 500 to stop drivers from gaining aerodynamic advantages. In Motorsport, where split seconds can create a vast difference, the stock car racing body did not want the drivers to take advantage of equipment related to safety.

Drivers usually use this method to direct air, something Noah Gragson tried at Daytona, but this time, he was busted for violating the rule after the FRM driver placed his hand against that opening during Wednesday’s qualifying run.

As a result, Gragson’s 49.504-second lap did not count, and it put him at the back of the pack. In the end, Gragson finished the race in 11th place. However, he owned up to his mistake in the post-qualifying interview.

Noah Gragson comes clean on his Daytona 500 slip-up

After NASCAR disqualified Noah Gragson from the Daytona 500 on Wednesday, the Front Row Motorsports driver owned up to his mistake and called himself “idiot and dumb.” Having forgotten the newly introduced qualifying rule, the Front Row Motorsports driver owned up to his mistake, telling FOX Sports 1

“I completely forgot about that rule, so that one is on me. Luckily, we have the Duels, and I feel like the Daytona 500 is such a long race that you can kind of start wherever. It is what it is, but hey, I feel like an idiot for that. Oh well, we got a race tomorrow to do. I’m dumb for that.”

Tyler Reddick of 23XI Racing claimed the Daytona 500 victory after maneuvering through the last lap chaos that took out Carson Hocevar and Michael McDowell. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Joey Logano finished the race in second and third positions, respectively.