Grant Enfinger wins first Truck race at IRP since 2011

In 2019, Grant Enfinger won the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series regular season championship only to be eliminated from the playoffs after just one round. Three years later, it only took one race for him to clinch a spot in the Round of 8.

Enfinger survived a chaotic ending to Friday’s TSport 200 at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park to win his first race of 2022 and the first NASCAR national series event at the track since 2011. Multiple late wrecks slowed the race also bought Enfinger time to move through the order after crew chief Jeff Hensley elected to change four tyres; on newer tyres than his peers and receiving enough breaks due to the cautions, Enfinger passed regular season champ Zane Smith on the final lap for the victory.

“Well, we’re finally moving forward at all! This is my first win since [Martinsville],” said Enfinger. “[We had a] terrible [regular season], not because of these guys behind me, you know we’ve just been a little off as an organisation. […] We’ve been working so hard because we’ve been sucking. It hurts to say it, but we have had a terrible season to this point.

“We had a great #23 Champion Power Equipment Chevrolet all day. It felt like every time we got to the lead, the caution came out. It put Hensley in a bad spot, but I knew from experience to just trust his gut. I couldn’t keep my mouth shut every time I kept trying to edge him on, but I had one of my Pop Pop’s Bible verses in there, so it’s a pretty special night and I’m definitely very, very thankful.

“For four years, [Hensley and I] rode the roller coaster together. We’ve been in the lows, we missed the playoffs in our first year together, but we haven’t missed it since. We’ve had some success together, he’s a racer and I’m a racer, and neither of us are very smart, but we put it together tonight.”

John Hunter Nemechek won the pole and the first stage, but did not end the night without incident as he turned Taylor Gray from the lead shortly before the end, eventually leading to a post-race confrontation. Another playoff contender Carson Hocevar dumped Colby Howard just a lap prior. In a Reddit AMA on Saturday, Howard described the incident as “uncalled for, I felt like our first contact was just hard racing with 10 to go but he obviously didn’t take it like that.”

“Sometimes you are the bug and sometimes you are the windshield. We were the bug tonight,” commented Nemechek. “I made a mistake early on and spun myself. Then we had a restart there at the end on older tyres—everyone had fresher tyres—I tried driving down the bottom of (turn) three underneath the #17 (Gray) and it just kept sliding. I accidently got into his left rear, tried to stay off of him. That team has their opinion, I have my opinion, I’m sure we will talk at some point. The final restart I had a really good jump. I thought we were going to have a shot there and then we got run in the fence by the #38 (Smith). That’s a couple of times that he has ran me in the fence. I’m taking notes.”

Ty Majeski, who drives for Enfinger’s previous team and race title sponsor ThorSport Racing, claimed Stage #2 and was in prime position for his first Truck victory as the leader with ten laps remaining, but his right-rear tyre went down and allowed Enfinger to get by him.

“Had a chance to win, leading with ten to go, that’s really all you can ask for,” Majeski said. “Obviously, the yellow—well, it probably saved us because we had a flat tyre—but it mixes up the strategy and it just didn’t go our way.”

In his NASCAR début, Layne Riggs scored a top ten by placing seventh. He recounted, “In qualifying, I hung it out trying to be a dirt racer. It bit me and I was down in the dumps about it. I was upset. I felt like I was out of the race. I got there on the start and then got messed up on pit road and lost a lap. I thought we were really over but did everything perfect after that. I made all of the track position that I could. I did all I could on pit road and made smart moves and got all of the way back up to seventh. It feels like a win to me in my first ever race. If you would have told me three hours ago, I would have finished seventh, I would have given you a hug.”

Race results