Tanner Gray

Tanner Gray took one of the most unusual paths to a NASCAR steering wheel. Before he ever turned a stock car in anger, the Artesia, New Mexico native was a drag racing prodigy, winning the 2018 NHRA Pro Stock world championship as a teenager and rewriting the record books in a discipline measured in thousandths of a second. Then he walked away from the quarter-mile to chase a completely different kind of racing. That leap from straight-line acceleration to wheel-to-wheel oval and road competition is one of the hardest transitions in motorsports, and Gray has spent his NASCAR career learning a craft most of his rivals grew up inside. Now piloting the No. 15 Toyota for TRICON Garage in the Craftsman Truck Series, Gray has built a steady body of work across 140 career starts, with three poles, 10 top-five finishes, and 32 top-tens. The raw speed that made him a champion on the drag strip shows up in qualifying trim, where his poles prove he can wring a fast lap out of a truck. The elusive first national win remains the goal, and Gray's development has been a patient climb rather than an overnight arrival. For a driver who conquered one form of racing before he could legally drink, the pursuit of victory lane in NASCAR is a reminder that talent transfers, but experience is earned one lap at a time.

Written by Richard R. Glover, NASCAR Reference