NASCAR
Grant Enfinger Grabs Second-Straight Win at Homestead
HOMESTEAD, Fla. – A new Truck Series title contender may have emerged in perfect time for a championship upset. Grant Enfinger turned a negative into a positive at Homestead. Using fuel strategy after an unscheduled pit stop, the No. 9 Chevrolet outlasted the field for a second-consecutive win this season. Following a heartbreaking 2023 title loss, Enfinger seemingly has the wind at his back for 2024’s finale race.
Both Stages would be split between title favorite Corey Heim and Talladega winner Grant Enfinger. Enfinger’s day appeared to be over on the Stage 3 restart however. Three-wide contact with Christian Eckes cut a tire on the No. 9, forcing Enfinger down pit road prematurely. Little did anyone know at the time, but this series of events would kickstart the eventual race-winning strategy.
Under caution early in the final stage, Enfinger was one of a select few to pit a lap later for fresher tires. This call put the No. 9 in a fuel saving situation to make the checkered flag, and cycled him to the lead on lap 113.
This lone caution was an apparent moment of intentional contact between Conner Jones and Matt Mills. Following this on-track incident, Mills’ truck slammed the outside wall and Jones was held two laps for reckless driving. Mills did get out of the wrecked truck under his own power, but was hospitalized for further evaluation.
Despite others running out of gas and much faster trucks on newer tires late, nobody had enough to overpower Enfinger. The CR7 Motorsports team won the opening two Round of 8 races, backing up their Talladega triumph.
“Man we’ve actually had a truck just as good at Darlington, just had bad circumstances though,” Enfinger said. “My buddy Tyler Young let a tear off get on our grille. That kind of took us out of contention there. I think the truck we had here was equally as good. Feel like we took a disadvantage with whatever happened on that restart with Christian (Eckes). I guess he was trying to split the middle and cut our tire, I didn’t think I did anything wrong. Just racing, Jeff (Stankewicz, crew chief) wanted to restart on the bottom and I took the top, I guess he was right on that one.”
“At the end of the day, we just had the best truck out here. This Champion Power Equipment Chevy was really fast after about five laps yesterday, and the same way today. Tim (Fedewa, spotter) did a good job of managing me with the tires, and Jeff did a good job of managing me with the fuel. I feel like I saved at least 20% more than in the first run. Jeff was on me pretty hard, obviously. Looked like the 38 and the 2 ran out. Hard to beat these two weeks.”
“It’s definitely good, like I said we’ve had potential all year. There’s been some times I haven’t executed, some times with bad luck, but maybe this is the time we get our momentum. Like I told the guys, just not getting too worked up over this one and just focusing on Phoenix. It’s hard not to have momentum. We should have pit stall choice for there now. Just overall, proud of the execution and speed from these guys. We had the fastest truck all day. When you do that, you can have some mistakes and recover.”
With trucks running out of fuel until the checkered flag, the top-10 became very Playoff-driver heavy. Ty Majeski, Connor Mosack, Corey Heim, and Tyler Ankrum were the first five behind Enfinger. Stewart Friesen, Daniel Dye, Rajah Caruth, Christian Eckes, and Taylor Gray rounded out the top-10. Nick Sanchez ran out of gas on the last lap, and came home in 13th.
Enfinger remains the only trucker locked into the Phoenix finale after Homestead. Take a look at the updated Playoff grid below, with one race left to set the Championship 4.
A quick turnaround time will see the Truck Series back in action on Friday night. Under the lights from Martinsville Speedway, the last three title contenders will be decided. The Zip Buy Now, Pay Later 200 goes green at 6 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. The Half-Mile of Mayhem holds three golden tickets for seven contenders; who can win the pressure-packed musical chairs Playoff match?
Written by Peter Stratta
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Photo Credit to Sean Gardner/Getty Images
