NASCAR stars Noah Gragson and Chase Briscoe have brought back one of the most bizarre 'theories' in the sport.

The pair appeared on the Door Bumper Clear podcast on Monday, and dragged a whole host of other Cup Series drivers into the nonsense via phone call as they insisted that the phases of the moon make a difference to grip.

It's the waxing crescent moon specifically that's caught the grid's attention, which the pair insisted will help the grip levels at Texas this weekend.

A minor point of note: aside from the obvious nonsense that is 'claiming that the phases of the moon effect grip', there will...absolutely not be a waxing crescent moon in the sky over Fort Worth this weekend. In fact, after Friday's full moon, there will be a waning gibbous moon. So that's something you know now.

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Phases of the moon: what?

Guesting on the podcast on Monday, Briscoe said: "Hey, speaking of Texas this weekend. Waxing crescent. So be ready. It's going to be gripped up. Waxing crescent moon. Gravitational pull will be different this week at Texas."

Gragson expressed his own excitement for the track to be 'so gripped up', before Briscoe added: "Wide open in qualifying, easy."

They they called Riley Herbst, Josh Berry and Austin Dillon to back up the theory, with the first two 'confirming' what a waxing crescent moon is a big grip indicator before Dillon...kindly, seemed to have no idea what was happening.

Does Noah Gragson actually think the moon affects tire grip?

It's not the first time that Gragson has spoken about the idea, with Michael McDowell planting the question in Jeff Gluck's '12 Questions' feature for the Front Row Motorsports driver early last year.

Sadly...it's an inside joke, rather than the greatest superstition in NASCAR history.

"I don’t actually believe the moon phase does anything," he said, "but Riley [Herbst] was running a Cup race at Richmond. It was the night race when Austin Dillon got into Joey [Logano] and Denny [Hamlin], and we were on the option tires, and Riley was tweaking out going to the track, just nervous. So we’re on the plane going up to Richmond, and Briscoe is like, 'Man, (the track) is gonna be gripped up. It’s a waxing crescent'.

"Riley’s like, 'What does that mean?' Briscoe goes, 'Dude, we only race on a waxing crescent at night like every year and a half. It’s gonna be gripped up. We might have to run qualifying (tire) pressures during the whole race, because it’ll be so gripped up'.

"So then Riley gets in on the joke. Then Austin Dillon’s crew chief is [Richard] Boswell, who used to crew chief Chase Briscoe. So last week I called Boswell and Austin answered and I’m like, 'Dude, are you guys ready for this waxing crescent?! Boswell, have you told him about that? Do you know about that yet?'

"And Austin is like, 'No …' and I’m like, 'Man, Boswell! You’ve got to tell him!' So Boswell starts in on it, and then we got Austin and Ty [Dillon] at driver intros to talk about the waxing crescent.

"We started trying to convince Brad Keselowski and Alex Bowman and Erik Jones. Now there’s a few more people in on it, and then we’re just finding our next people we’re going to tell about the waxing crescent. So no, I don’t believe it, but Michael McDowell was on the driver intros stage when we were trying to convince them."

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