As others were running out of gas Saturday, Truck series driver Grant Enfinger had enough fuel left for a burnout on the fronstretch at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Enfinger last pitted at lap 79 of 134 during the race’s final caution and was able to stay out when other Playoff drivers topped up on fuel during the last green flag run. In the end, Enfinger saved enough fuel to win with a big margin of victory of over 17 seconds.
Enfinger led 32 laps e n route to his CR7 Racing team’s second-ever Truck Series victory. The first came just two weeks ago when Enfinger won at Talladega. That means Enfinger has won both of the first two races in the Truck Series Round of 8 and is the only driver to lock himself into the finale at Phoenix with a win.
According to Enfinger, though, this sort of performance is a long time coming. He pointed out that the team has provided race-winning equipment throughout the season, and bad luck has been the only thing keeping the team out of victory lane.
“We’ve had a truck actually just as good at Darlington, just had bad circumstances,” Enfinger explained. “The truck we had here was equally as good, and I feel like we were able to take advantage.”
Still, he acknowledged that getting the result is huge for the organization and exciting for him as the driver.
“Hard to beat these two weeks,” Enfinger said.
“Like I said, we’ve had potential all year. Yeah, there’s been some times that I haven’t executed, there’s been some times that we’ve had bad luck, but maybe this is the time we get our momentum. Like I told the guys, let’s not get too worked up over this and let’s focus on Phoenix, but it’s hard not to have momentum.”
The win might not confer any points advantage, since he was already locked into the Championship 4 race at Phoenix thanks to the Talladega win and all Championship 4 drivers start that race on equal footing, but it grants momentum and a few other small perks.
“I think, according to my buddy who tells me all the things I need to know, that should mean we have pit stall choice for Phoenix. But just overall, proud of the execution of these guys and more than anything just proud of the speed. We had the fastest truck all day, and if you do that you can even have slipups and mistakes and overcome them,” Enfinger said.
The win was anything but an easy ride, no matter how much speed Enfinger’s truck may have had. Not only did he have to save tires and fuel at the end of the final stage, he had to come down pit road at the beginning of that stage.
After winning Stage 2, Enfinger picked the top lane to restart, but Christian Eckes aggressively went for a gap from the second row. When Eckes washed up the track, he got into Enfinger, cutting down one of Enfinger’s tires. That forced Enfinger to make an unscheduled pit stop under green a few laps before topping up under the final caution.
“Whatever happened on that restart, I don’t think I did anything wrong, and my buddy Christian just tried to split the middle and just cut our tire a little bit. Just racing,” Enfinger summed it up. Tim wanted to restart on the bottom, I wanted to restart on the top, so I guess he was right and I was wrong.”
The rest of the Playoff drivers were split on strategy. Nick Sanchez, and Tyler Ankrum adopted Enfinger’s strategy, while Corey Heim, Ty Majeski, Christian Eckes, Rajah Caruth, Taylor Gray chose to pit around lap 100 of 134. The choices didn’t work out for everyone; Nick Sanchez, who had pitted a lap before Grant Enfinger during the caution period, ran out of fuel while running second on the last lap and finished 13th, the worst of any Playoff driver.
Truck Series Playoff Standings after Homestead
1. (ADV) Grant Enfinger
2. (+49) Corey Heim
3. (+38) Christian Eckes
4. (+22) Ty Majeski
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5. (-22) Rajah Caruth
6. (-24) Taylor Gray
7. (-41) Tyler Ankrum
8. (-43) Nick Sanchez
The strategy worked out well for Ty Majeski, whose crew chief overruled his driver to stay out during the caution and pit under the green flag. Majeski ended up second as a result when all the drivers in front of him on the other strategy ran out of fuel – except Enfinger.
“I was hoping everyone would run out and we would have enough time to get there, but we ended up one spot short,” Majeski said. “I am really proud of the effort.
“Honestly, I kind of wanted to pit but Joe made the safer call to stay out because we couldn’t afford to give up points like the 2 did and some of the others,” he admitted of his thoughts during the caution period. “It was a great call, the safe call.”
Connor Mosack finished third, his best-ever finish in the Truck Series.
Corey Heim led more laps than any driver, 68, and won the first stage, but he ultimately finished fourth. Heim leaves in second in the Playoff leaderboard, 49 points to the good heading into the elimination race at Martinsville.
“Yeah, I mean overall, a good day for points and what not, obviously, the main goal is to get to Phoenix,” Heim acknowledged. “But just disappointing, we were so fast last year and wanted to come back and redeem ourselves and win the race, of course. But, have no complaints as far as points go. Makes Martinsville a little bit easier, but still have to put together a decent day.”
Heim chose not to pit under caution and came down pit road under the green flag, where he turned the faster laps than the leaders but was never able to make up the deficit. He explained that he expected to at least finish ahead of the No. 98 of Ty Majeski and finish at the top of his strategy, expecting the leaders to all run out of fuel, but neither of those expectations came to pass.
“I thought once we got through the cycle, we had a lap better on the 98 as far as tires and we had the three-second gap. I thought we were going to drive away and see those guys run out of gas, but it just never fell our way,” Heim acknowledged.
Playoff driver Tyler Ankrum rounded out the top five. Stewart Friesen, Daniel Dye, Rajah Caruth, Christian Eckes, and Taylor Gray all earned top-ten finishes.
The race featured one scary moment midway through. After a tough battle, Connor Jones, driving the No. 66 Thorsport truck, pushed Matt Mills into corner, sending him into the outside wall in a fiery crash after growing frustrated with the way Mills was racing him.
Mills struggled to get out of the car and looked visibly shaken. He was transported to a local hospital after the race for further evaluation. During the race, NASCAR listened to Jones’ radio and determined that he expressed an intention to wreck Mills. As a result, Jones was held for two laps for causing a wreck, and he finished 25th of 34 cars.
The Truck Series will return on November 1st at Martinsville Speedway. That race will determine the Championship 4 lineup who will contend for the season trophy at Phoenix.
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