Grant Enfinger made winning at Talladega look easy. He kept the field behind him as they fanned out and wrecked heading to the checkered flag, just like he’d kept the field behind him for a race-high 34 of 85 laps.
The win means even more than any other Talladega win, though. The first race of the Round of 8 was the first chance for any driver to guarantee themselves a spot in the Championship 4 at Phoenix Raceway, and Enfinger took full advantage to get a chance to race for the championship.
Enfinger thanked crew chief Tim Fedewa first and foremost after getting out of the truck for preparing such a dominant truck.
“That was Tim Fedewa right there. We knew this stuff was going to get dicey, the biggest thing – we didn’t make all the perfect decisions today, but we had a Champion Power Equipment Chevy that was fast enough to get it done today,” he said
It may have looked smooth, but from within the cockpit the finish was a fight. The field fanned out through the trioval, with the No. 17 of Taylor Gray on the top and the No. 19 of Christian Eckes on the bottom. Enfinger chose to stick with the bottom lane, a good move even as Eckes was spun himself coming to the line by Ryan Reed with overaggressive pushes, and his No. 9 car ended up in victory lane.
“That was hairy, coming right there” Enfinger described. “I knew Taylor was coming with a run, Tim told me to go up then he told me to come down, and that’s just Talladega right there.
Hopefully all the fans enjoyed it, there’s nothing like winning at your home track. I’ve got my family here, first win with daughter and my son here, so looking forward to that. And on top of that, we get to race for a championship at Phoenix. The first round did not go well, but we snaked through that and we won here.”
Playoff driver Taylor Gray finished second with a few extra points from a ninth-place finish in Stage 1, a result that disappointed the driver who’s still racing for his first win in the series.
“I can’t be too upset. You’re pretty lucky if you can finish second in one of these things,” Gray said. “Can’t thank all my TRICON guys enough for sticking with it all day.
While he was there at the end, leading a line to challenge Grant Enfinger, Gray didn’t have the speed throughout the day to pick up critical stage points as well and leaves fifteen points below the cutline, not much of a change from where he entered the weekend, seventeen points below.
“Honestly, just didn’t get the stage points we really needed to go anywhere in points, and I’ve got to figure out where I’m living life wrong. I’ve come so close to winning some of these and I just can’t.”
Daniel Dye came across the line just behind Taylor Gray to secure a third-place finish.
Playoff contender Rajah Caruth ended up fourth, with some bonus points from a sixth in Stage 2. That means Caruth leaves Talladega five points below the cutline, a slightly better position than the eight-point deficit he entered with.
It was something of a disappointment for him, though, as Caruth was too fast entering pit road during green flag pit stops in the final stage and was forced to make a pass-through penalty before the caution came out to allow him to get back in the pack and race for the final ten laps.
“Yeah, just pretty mad at myself for taking us out of the game there with pitting, and we got lucky with catching that yellow,” Caruth admitted. “But I’m just super proud of everybody on this HendrickCars.com Silverado group.
“I’m just, I’m pretty frustrated that I took us out of it there, because we were right there with the 9 [Enfinger] and the 19 [Eckes] before the pit cycle started and we’re right in the mix. So wish I could execute it better, but to leave Talladega a little bit better than we came in is good.”
Lawless Alan ended up fifth, his first career top-five finish, when all was said and done. He also picked finished eighth and third in the stages to add to the career day for the Reaume Brothers Racing driver.
“It worked out pretty much exactly how I wanted it to,” Alan described of the finish. “I wanted to be on the bottom and I wanted the 9 [Enfinger] and the 19 [Eckes] to be in front of me, and that’s how it worked out. We all got a really good launch and were all pushing really well.
We got to third and were just riding, and I feel like I could have won the race if I effectively blocked the 17 [Gray], but I knew that I had to do something in order to not be third,” he added. I feel like if I did that, I would have won, so I’m happy with fifth, but, man, what could have been.”
Christian Eckes ultimately finished sixth. He leaves with a 30-point advantage to the cutline. Ryan Reed, Stefan Parsons, Bret Holmes, and Spencer Boyd rounded out the top ten.
As for the rest of the Playoff drivers: Christian Eckes finished eleventh and leaves with a 30-point gap to the cutline, the same as Christian Eckes, though he had come into the weekend with nine extra points compared to Eckes. Ty Majeski finished twelfth and leaves with a five-point advantage. Tyler Ankrum finished 14th and leaves with a 21-point deficit, the worst position of any postseason driver. Nick Sanchez finished 22nd after being involved in the first caution and leaves with a similarly large 20-point deficit.
Sanchez was turned by Connor Zilisch in the first caution for cause as the field approached two laps to go in the second stage, ending Sanchez bouncing off Enfinger and spinning around with damage that he had to deal with for the rest of the race.
Besides the finish, the other big crash came in the final stage and set up a ten-lap race to the finish that Grant Enfinger ultimately controlled.
Jake Garcia had to lift when Christian Eckes pulled up in front of him. That surprised Stefan Parsons, the driver pushing him from behind, who ran into the back of his truck and sent Garcia sideways into Layne Riggs. The wreck collected much of the field besides those drivers, namely Connor Zilisch, Tanner Gray, Dean Thomspon, and Matt Mills. It also involved some Playoff drivers in Tyler Ankrum and Taylor Gray.
Of note, William Sawalich earned the pole for the race at just eighteen years and one day old, making him the fourth-youngest polesitter in Truck Series history and the youngest-ever NASCAR pole winner at Talladega. He did it at the earliest opportunity: NASCAR requires drivers to be eighteen or older to race on tracks above a mile in length, so this was his first chance to do so. Sawalich ultimately finished 27th after a battery issue forced him to be pushed back to pit road in the Stage 1 break.
