DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — While Chase Elliott enjoyed most of the headlines Sunday afternoon at Daytona Int’l Speedway, 21-year-old Kaz Grala made some news of his own.

Grala was thrust into the spotlight Saturday when Austin Dillon, driver of the No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, tested positive for COVID-19 and was forced to sit out Sunday’s Go Bowling 235 on the Daytona Int’l Speedway road course.

In Dillon’s place, the team announced Grala would make his NASCAR Cup Series debut. He’d only found out Friday that the team had designated him as Dillon’s backup driver for Sunday.

Then, much to Grala’s surprise, he got a call Saturday informing him that he’d be in the car for the race the following day.

“There wasn’t as much preparation as I probably would have liked to make my Cup debut,” Grala said Sunday evening after an impressive seventh-place result. “I did just find out yesterday (Saturday) morning that I’d be behind the wheel of the 3 car. I knew the day before that they had said they wanted to bring me as a backup driver, which I thought was odd, but better to be prepared than not.”

It’s been a strange road for Grala to his NASCAR Cup Series debut. In 2018, Grala was set to run the full NASCAR Xfinity Series schedule for JGL Racing when the team was shut down due to a lack of sponsorship.

In order to keep his season afloat, Grala’s father Darius Grala, scrambled to put together an Xfinity Series program via Fury Race Cars. The elder Grala co-owns Fury Race Cars with Tony Eury Jr. and Jeff Fultz.

Using a few cars given to the team by JGL Racing as a sort of severance for Kaz Grala, the team ran 12 races in 2018. In their first race in the Xfinity Series, the team finished 10th at Charlotte Motor Speedway. They earned three more top-10 finishes, including a top-five result at Daytona Int’l Speedway.

Following his successful, albeit unexpected, season in 2018, Grala landed a part-time deal to drive for Richard Childress Racing in the NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2019. He’s run seven races for the team, earning top-five results the last two seasons at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wis.

It was that success on the challenging Elkhart Lake circuit, which included a fourth-place run the previous weekend, that helped Grala end up in the No. 3 Chevrolet for Sunday’s race.

“Last weekend we got a top five in the Xfinity Series, and that was driving for RCR,” Grala said. “So I do think that that helped their perception of me on a road course going into this weekend and their faith in me. We also stayed out last weekend on slick tires while it was raining. The strategy came back to us. It leveled out by the end, but I think the team was really pleased that I was able to keep it on the track for them and not make any crazy moves.

“I think all that combined kind of led to their comfort with putting me in this car. They didn’t think that I was going to tear it up or do anything wild with it.”

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