New to the NASCAR Cup Series this season is 22-year-old Derek Kraus.
The Wisconsin native made the first two career starts of his Cup career in the Kaulig Racing No. 16 the past two weeks at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Phoenix Raceway. Kraus is scheduled to make four more starts this year in the No. 16, coming at Kansas Speedway and Darlington Raceway in May, World Wide Technology Raceway in June and Phoenix again in November.
Kraus made the jump to Cup after running eight NASCAR Xfinity Series races for Kaulig last year, scoring three top 10s. He broke into the NASCAR scene in the late 2010s, winning the ARCA Menards Series West championship in 2019. He then moved up to the Craftsman Truck Series with team owner Bill McAnally (McAnally-Hilgemann Racing) and spent 2020-22 in Trucks before finding himself without a full-time ride last year.
In the time since then, Kraus served as the simulation driver for Legacy Motor Club and Kaulig, which led to the latter tapping him to run some races for the team.
Frontstretch‘s Michael Massie caught up with Kraus ahead of his Cup debut at Las Vegas to talk the transition to Cup, coming together with Kaulig and his love of Wisconsin sports.
Michael Massie, Frontstretch: It’s been a little windy here in Las Vegas. And there was a video circulating of you running to the car, and people were commenting on it, ‘How’s his hair staying perfectly in place?’ So how was that going on?
Derek Kraus: I don’t know, gel in the morning. But yeah, I was a little late to get in the car for qualifying. I was looking over some SMT data with Travis [Mack, crew chief] before qualifying and trying to learn as much as I could.
Massie: How are you feeling about the Cup car so far?
Kraus: It’s definitely kind of everything what everybody told me about. It’s a lot different than anything else that I’ve ever driven, for sure. It feels a lot different with how the car reacts to the track and changes and all that stuff. So it’s definitely been a great experience and looking forward to the race.
Massie: Who have you been leaning on as you get ready to race in Cup this year?
Kraus: I talked to AJ [Allmendinger] and Daniel [Hemric], the two teammates, quite a bit. And they’ve been really helpful, telling me the do’s and don’ts of the car. But it’s definitely one of those things you kind of just gotta experience….
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