DRIVER BIO
Precocious both personally and professionally, Kaz Grala’s ascent through motorsports’ developmental ranks has already seen records shattered as he has made his mark at each level of the sport on the way to the NASCAR Cup Series.
As a native of Boston, Massachusetts, Grala got his start racing go-karts at F1 Boston when he was four years old, winning multiple championships as he honed his racing skills. At the age of 10, he began racing Bandoleros, winning the Outlaws Summer Shootout championship in 2011. In 2012, Grala won 15 races and the Winter Heat Championship at Charlotte Motor Speedway in the Legend Car Pro Division.
Grala’s stock-car racing career kicked off in 2013, when the then 14-year-old driver competed in the UARA-STARS Series, becoming the youngest winner in series history at Hickory Motor Speedway.
The following year, Grala made an indelible impression in sports car racing when he ran in the Michelin Pilot Challenge at just 15 years old, becoming the youngest driver ever to compete in an IMSA event, a record that still stands. Also in 2014, he competed in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series and won events at two historic racetracks: Martinsville Speedway and Caraway Speedway, where he became the youngest NASCAR winner in track history.
In 2015, Grala drove for Kyle Busch Motorsports in Super Late Models and became the youngest winner in KBM’s history, leading 131 of 150 laps en route to victory from the pole at South Boston Speedway.
In 2016, Grala competed in the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona. At the age of 17, Grala was the youngest driver in the field. Later that season, Grala made his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series debut at Martinsville Speedway, running a part-time schedule throughout the year.
The following season, Grala made his first full-time effort in the Truck Series, kicking off 2017 with a win from the pole in the season-opener at Daytona International Speedway, making him the youngest NASCAR winner in history at the storied track at 18 years, 1 month, and 26 days old. Grala capped off his stellar rookie season as the youngest driver ever to make the NASCAR Playoffs.
In 2018, Grala made his NASCAR Xfinity Series debut with JGL Racing, scoring an incredible fourth-place finish in the season opener. The impressive results continued for the first five races of the season with JGL, which netted the best average finish in the team’s history. Unfortunately, the team unexpectedly shut its doors mid-season because of the owner’s health concerns.
With little hope of a mid-season opportunity at another team, Grala, with the help of family, friends, and FURY Race Cars, took on the near-impossible task of creating a competitive NASCAR team in under two weeks — they succeeded. A top-10 finish in their first race together and a near win in their third made Grala and FURY the feel-good, underdog story of the season. In fact, their fifth-place finish in the July Daytona race was named one of “The Biggest Motorsports Stories of 2018” by Jalopnik.
The results didn’t go unnoticed, and in 2019, Grala joined Richard Childress Racing’s driver lineup in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. He scored two top-five finishes in his first seven starts with the team, before being called up to drive the iconic No. 3 car in the NASCAR Cup Series when COVID-19 sidelined Austin Dillon for the weekend. Kaz became the only driver since Carl Edwards in 2004 to score a top-ten finish in his Cup debut, finishing 7th in the inaugural Daytona Road Course event. He joined Kyle Busch as the only driver to score a top-10 finish in all three NASCAR national series in 2020, in addition to picking up his first ever NASCAR Xfinity Series stage win in the Drive for the Cure 250.
In 2021, Kaulig Racing tapped Grala to drive the No 16. Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE in select NASCAR Cup Series races. Kaz made his Daytona 500 debut, leading ten laps along the way in the 63rd running of the Great American Race. A few months later, he grabbed a sixth place finish in the GEICO 500 at Talladega, his second top-ten in the NASCAR Cup Series in only his third start. Kaz also returned to the Truck Series in 2021, making three starts with Young’s Motorsports. He scored an average finish of 7.3, and made headlines with his second-place finish in NASCAR’s debut weekend at Circuit of the Americas.
2022 is shaping up to be a huge year for Grala. Floyd Mayweather has created a brand new NASCAR Cup Series team, and has selected Grala to lead the fight on-track. The team will run select races throughout the year, starting with the 2022 Daytona 500. Kaz has also been tapped by Alpha Prime Racing in the Xfinity Series to compete in a handful of events, including the “West Coast Swing” and his home race: New Hampshire Motor Speedway. He’ll also serve as the team’s reserve driver for the duration of the season. Young’s Motorsports has resigned Grala for 2022, this time for half of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series schedule in the No. 02 Chevy. The team looks to build on their already-impressive performance together in 4x as many races this year.
