HOMESTEAD, Fla. — A strategy call from the pit box coupled with a patient move forward landed veteran Grant Enfinger his second consecutive NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Playoff race win in Saturday’s Baptist Health 200 at Homestead-Miami Speedway while his closest competitors ran out of fuel behind him in the closing laps.
Enfinger, who won the opening race in this Playoff round at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway three weeks ago denied the other seven Playoff racers a chance at an automatic bid into championship contention. So now at least two drivers will advance based on points-earned with only next Saturday’s race at Martinsville, Va. to settle which other three drivers move onward into the title fight.
Enfinger’s No. 9 CR7 Motorsports Chevrolet suffered damage on an early race restart, and the team opted to move to a different pit strategy – taking tires and fuel on lap 80 while most of the day’s previous race leaders opted to pit later on Lap 100. Ultimately Enfinger was able to both save enough fuel and race off to enough advantage that no one was able to catch him as he raced away to his 12th career victory.
Taking the lead for good with 22 laps remaining, Enfinger claimed a 17.5-second win over ThorSport Racing’s Ty Majeski as other trucks on a similar alternate strategy to Enfinger – the No. 38 driven by Layne Riggs and the No. 2 driven by Nick Sanchez – began running out of fuel in the final two laps.
Enfinger had enough fuel he even did a burnout to celebrate the win.
“At the end of the day, [crew chief] Jeff [Stankiewicz] just had the best truck out here,” said Enfinger, who actually made up a lap on track after contact on a race re-start cut his tire earlier in the day.
“Our car was really fast after about five laps yesterday [in practice] and was the same way today. Jeff did a good job managing me with the tires and then managing me with the fuel. I feel like I saved at least 20 percent more than I did in the first run. Jeff was on me pretty hard obviously and the 38 [Layne Riggs] ran out and the 2 [Nick Sanchez] did too.
“Hard to beat these two weeks,” he added with a grin.
“We’ve had potential all year,” the 38-year-old Alabama native continued. “There’s been sometimes, I haven’t executed and sometimes we’ve just had bad luck. Maybe it’s just time we get our momentum now.”
Connor Mosack finished a career best third-place in the No. 7 Spire Motorsports truck. The day’s most dominant truck, driven by TRICON Garage’s Playoff driver Corey Heim finished fourth after leading a race best 68 of the 134 laps. Heim continues to lead the championship standings and is now 49 points above fifth place with the top-four drivers advancing to the title race.
“Overall, a good day for points, but disappointing,” said Heim, who has a series best six wins on the year. “We were so fast last year and wanted to come back and redeem ourselves and win the race of course. But no complaints as far as points go, makes Martinsville a little bit easier if we put together a decent day.”
McAnally-Hilgemann Racing’s Playoff driver Tyler Ankrum, finished fifth – his best finish of the Playoff run to date. Veteran Stewart Friesen was sixth, followed by Daniel Dye.
And three Playoff drivers – Spire Motorsports’ Rajah Caruth, McAnally-Hilgemann’s Christian Eckes and Tricon Garage’s Taylor Gray rounded out the top-10.
Heading into the next race, Heim has that 49-point edge above the cutoff line. Eckes is 38 points to the good and Majeski now holds a 22-point advantage. Caruth is ranked fifth, the first driver outside the Playoff bubble, 22 points back. Gray is 24 points back and Ankrum and Sanchez – who finished 13th after running out of fuel – are 41 and 43 points behind, respectively.
Frankie Muniz, the popular actor from the Malcolm in the Middle television series, finished 33rd in his series debut, his truck suffering mechanical problems early in the race.