Wow. What an incredible finish.
With one lap left in Friday’s NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series NextEra Energy 250 at Daytona, it looked like it would be Grant Enfinger or Ross Chastain that would walk away with the victory.
However, as the pack worked it’s way into the final turns, Chastain slipped high.
As Chastain slid out of the picture, underdog Jordan Anderson slipped into the fray in his No. 3 Chevrolet Silverado. Anderson Pushed Enfinger through the final set of turns and as the two headed for the finish line, Anderson faked low, then knifed high.
Anderson would get alongside Enfinger and would narrowly take the lead. Then, Enfinger slammed into the side of Anderson’s truck, and began to regain momentum.
As the two crossed the finish line, it was Enfinger who barely edged out a victory by 0.010 of a second. Enfinger’s third-career Truck Series win is the seventh-closest finish in Series history.
Enfinger, who grabbed Ford’s 100th win in the Truck Series, says it was an incredible night.
“The biggest thing is we had a really good Ford F-150 to do it with,” said Enfinger. “With four or five laps to go it was time to go and we were able to get up in the third groove and make some stuff happen. We got the lead on that big wreck going into one and two and that’s what kind of sealed the deal for us. My buddy, Ross (Chastain) gave me some good pushes at the end. I know he was trying to reach out on us and I was able to block him, but it’s just an unbelievable night.”
For Anderson, it was a career best finish. Before Friday night, Anderson’s previous best finish was a seventh-place effort at Talladega two seasons ago.
Lost in the beating and banging to the line, was the fact that Codie Rohrbaugh nearly snuck up and stole the win. Rohrbaugh, rebounded from a spin in Stage 2, to a third place finish. Rohrbaugh was just 0.070 sec. back of the winner.
Derek Kraus finished fourth and Natalie Decker finished fifth.
Decker’s finish ties the best finish for a female driver in the history of the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series.
The entire top-five matched or surpassed their previous career best finishes.
Austin Hill, Johnny Sauter, Ross Chastain, Sheldon Creed and Jason White rounded out the top-10 finishers in the race.
Riley Herbst won Stage 1, while the eventual race winner, Enfinger, won Stage 2.
The race was marred by three huge crashes. In the opening Stage, Ty Majeski flipped his No. 45 truck in a scary crash. In the final Stage, there were two separate big crashes. One was triggered by Angela Ruch. The other happened at the front of the pack when Ben Rhodes lost control while battling for the lead.
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