Enfinger Wins ‘Dega To Make Truck Series Championship 4

TALLADEGA, Ala. – No home track win in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series could be any sweeter than the one that Grant Enfinger got Friday evening at Talladega Superspeedway.

After winning the second stage and leading nine times for a race-high 34 laps, Enfinger controlled the closing stages of the Love’s RV Stop 225 en route to his 11th career Truck Series victory and a guaranteed spot in the Championship 4.

The Fairhope, Ala., veteran took the lead as then-leader Nick Sanchez went spinning off the bumper of Christian Eckes on the approach to turn three, bringing out the fourth and final caution of the race on lap 71 of 85.

From there, Enfinger weathered a clustered final restart, used a push from Eckes to get out ahead of the lead pack, and never looked back over a nine-lap sprint to the finish.

Though fellow playoff driver Taylor Gray had a look on the outside coming into the tri-oval toward the checkered flag, Enfinger was able to hang on as others crashed behind them, holding off Gray by .041 seconds for his first win in more than a year.

It snapped a 24-race drought for Enfinger dating back to Aug. 27, 2023, at the Milwaukee (Wis.) Mile, and made Talladega the first track in his Truck Series career where the 39-year-old has multiple victories.

“That was all Tim [Fedewa, spotter],” said Enfinger of how he survived the final laps. “We knew that things were going to get dicey and wanted to be ahead of it if we could, but we didn’t make all the perfect decisions today and we still had a fast enough Champion Power Equipment Chevrolet to get the job done. I chose outside once or twice when maybe I shouldn’t have, but it all worked out.

“That was hairy on the very last lap; I knew Taylor [Gray] was coming with a run,” he continued. “Tim told me to go up and then [drop] back down, and that finish is just Talladega. It’s how it is here. But there’s nothing else like winning at your hometown track … and now because of it we get to race for a championship in Phoenix.”

Also notable was the fact that Enfinger delivered the first win for CR7 Motorsports – owned by part-time Truck Series driver Codie Rohrbaugh – in the team’s 113th start dating back to its inception in 2018.

“Codie has been racing for a long time, so it’s not a first-year team by any means, but we revamped everything when I came over,” noted Enfinger, who moved to CR7 after GMS Racing closed its doors at the end of last year. “We were fortunate enough to bring (crew chief) Jeff Stankiewicz over … Michael Shelton (general manager) was already there, and a lot of really, really good people have put in a lot of work to help build this team to where we are right now.

“From the outside, people might have looked at it as a demotion, but [thanks to an alliance with McAnally-Hilgemann Racing] we have everything we need to be successful and just haven’t been able to put it all together. Today we finally did that, and I couldn’t be happier for Codie and this entire family.”

What was expected to be a chaotic Truck Series race at the tour’s largest racetrack ended up being predominately clean, with Matt Mills topping a caution-free and competitive opening stage for the first stage win of his Truck Series career and stage two nearly following suit in the same fashion.

The first incident of the day actually happened coming to two to go in the second segment, as Gray was being lapped by the lead pack and tried to fall into the draft as trucks split him both to the inside and the outside.

It caused a frenetic stack-up both in front of and behind Gray, with rookie Connor Zilisch bumping Sanchez into the latter’s first spin of the day at the head of the pack while Matt Mills skidded around behind Gray after banging doors with Stefan Parsons in the midst of the chaos.

Enfinger escaped that melee to earn the win in the second stage and set himself up for the stretch run.

After that, two incidents took place during the final stage, both after the frontrunners had completed their final cycle of green-flag pit service.

Stefan Parsons tipped Jake Garcia’s truck down into the pack on lap 62, after Eckes tried to move up the track exiting the tri-oval to block a run of momentum from Garcia’s Ford.

Garcia hooked Layne Riggs’ machine in the right rear as he came across to the left, turning Riggs back into traffic and collecting Tanner Gray and Mills in a three-wide crunch against the outside wall.

Sanchez’s second spin of the race, two laps after the ensuing lap-69 restart, was the only other incident prior to the last-lap crash that broke out coming to the checkered flag.

While Sanchez escaped damage in that fracas, he did clip Daniel Dye as he tried to wrestle back control of his Chevrolet, causing Dye to spin and leading to additional contact between Mason Maggio and Keith McGee as they tried to avoid being swept up as well.

Just as he did when Sanchez spun at the end of stage two, Enfinger slipped through to the lead at that point and then never gave it up over the final 15 laps.

The lead draft stayed single file for the majority of the going following the last restart with nine to go, meaning Enfinger’s lone challenge came after the white flag, when the outside lane tried to form up very late in the going.

As Tyler Ankrum tried to shove Taylor Gray forward on the outside coming through turns three and four, third-running Lawless Alan jumped to the top in an effort to pick up the run and challenge for his first Truck Series win.

Gray had other ideas, however, moving even further to the outside to put Alan in the middle as Enfinger stayed committed to the double-yellow line on the inside of the racetrack.

That gave Gray enough room to get to Enfinger’s outside, but he ran out of time – and momentum – when Dye got off-center on Ankrum’s bumper and turned Ankrum into the middle of the pack exiting the tri-oval.

With no help as the lead pack flew apart behind him, Gray could get no closer than a half-truck length and had to settle for runner-up honors for the third time in his career.

“At the end of the day, I can’t be too upset,” said Gray, who spun into the turn-one grass during the lap-62 crash but escaped without any damage. “You’re pretty lucky if you can finish second (at Talladega). Can’t thank my TRICON Garage guys enough for sticking with me and staying with it all day.

“We didn’t get the stage points we needed to really go anywhere in points, but I don’t know, we’re living life wrong or something,” he added. “I’ve come so close to winning these things and haven’t been able to do it. It’s just frustrating to see it right there and not be able to finish the job.”

Dye slipped past the carnage around him to finish third for McAnally-Hilgemann Racing, followed by Spire Motorsports’ Rajah Caruth and Alan, who ended up a career-best fifth in a Reaume Brothers Racing entry.

Two of Dye’s teammates, Eckes and Ryan Reed, were sixth and seventh despite coming across the finish line in the middle of the race-ending crash. Parsons rallied back to eighth for Henderson Motorsports.

Owner-drivers Bret Holmes (Bret Holmes Racing) and Spencer Boyd (Freedom Racing Enterprises) rounded out the top 10 in solid showings for their respective underdog organizations.

The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series playoffs continue at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway with the second race of the Round of 12. Broadcast coverage is slated for Saturday, Oct. 26 at noon ET, live on FS1, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.