Grala entered the Go Bowling 235 as one of only a few drivers in the Cup Series field with experience on the Daytona road course. Grala previously made two starts in the Rolex 24 on the difficult circuit, giving him a slight advantage over his counterparts.
However, due to the driver change, Grala had to start the race at the rear of the field. That forced him to race smart and aggressively to get back to the front.
“We knew we had to start at the back due to the driver change, so I really took stage one to get comfortable in the car,” Grala said. “I didn’t push the issue. I was conservative in the braking zones, wasn’t real aggressive on the restarts, just kind of hung around, made sure my Cup debut didn’t end prematurely and got comfortable out there, and by stage two, I was working up to it, making a little bit of headway forward.
“By stage three after the lightning delay I kind of got a refresh,” Grala continued. “I got to look at some SMT data, which was really helpful because, of course, with the late notice I wasn’t able to run any laps in the simulator this week in the Cup car, so I didn’t really know exactly what to expect. I got to overlay my laps with Chase’s and Denny’s and find a couple things that I could gain, and when we strapped back into the car we moved forward from there.”
Through strategy Grala managed to lead three laps late in the race and thanks in large part to a few late-race restarts, he fought his way up to seventh by the time the checkered flag waved.
“I was hoping for a top 30, so this is certainly far beyond my wildest dreams for this race,” Grala said. “I just wanted to complete the laps. Going into the race, I thought if I could just complete all the laps, I felt like I could get a top 30, and that was what I was looking to do.
“So really my mentality never changed throughout the race. I still wanted to complete the laps. I wanted to minimize mistakes, and I feel like we were able to do that. Our pit stops were excellent. Our time on and off pit road was really good. I felt like we were able to capitalize on new tires, clean air, make up some ground. Felt like we just kind of checked all the boxes that I was hoping to check and that led us to a really good finish.”