This weekend, Grant Enfinger returns to the site of the biggest heartbreak of his 195-race NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series career, Phoenix Raceway, with a chance to right that wrong. Last season, Enfinger had the 2023 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship sewed up in the closing laps of the Championship Race at Phoenix, but late-race shenanigans led to quadruple Overtime, which allowed Ben Rhodes to scoot by for his second career NASCAR Truck Series title.
The driver, who will be one of the four NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Championship 4 contenders this weekend, explained in Thursday’s Championship 4 Media Day that the closing laps of the race at Phoenix last year rocked him, mentally.
“I left here probably in a little bit of a bad headspace, you know just with all of the chaos and everything that had transpired,” Enfinger admitted.
After taking a moment to decompress from the frustration that was last season’s championship race, Enfinger says he found peace with the fact that he and his team played the race as well as they could with the cards in their hand. They were just defeated by a bad turn card.
“…I left here kind of at peace of knowing that, I feel like I did, for the most part, the stuff in our control to be able to take advantage of situations and be able to ultimately win a championship last year, and yeah, it didn’t play out,” Enfinger explained.
It’s been a whirlwind 12 months for the Alabama native.
That race a season ago signaled the final race for the GMS Racing team in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, which left the 39-year-old racer searching for a ride. He found one in CR7 Motorsports, which he ran part-time for in 2021 when sponsorship issues led to Enfinger being removed from the ThorSport Racing truck in 10 races that season.
While Enfinger showed solid speed in a part-time role with CR7 Motorsports that season, not many expected the No. 9 team to carry the speed to make it into the Championship 4 this season. But Enfinger says as the team was about to depart for the season-opening race at Daytona International Speedway, his crew chief laid out the goals for the team.
“…Myself and Jeff Stankiewicz, when we started the year off when we loaded everything for Daytona, Jeff told all of the guys, ‘Hey, this is our goal,” he said our goal was to, ‘Win a race, to get Grant back to the Championship 4.’ At the end of the day, we’ve done that,” Enfinger recalled. “It was very, very tough to get here.”
While Enfinger felt the pep talk from Stankiewicz lit a fire under the CR7 team, he isn’t sure everyone truly believed a Championship 4 berth was possible after the driver and team began the season with just two top-10 finishes through the opening nine races of the year.
“I think for myself, and Jeff, I think we more expected to be here,” Enfinger stated. “And maybe our organization and even some of the guys in the organization, even though they bought in [initially], throughout the process [doubted] with our early season struggles. And kind of us gaining our speed, everybody started buying in, but I don’t know if everybody really believed we would make it to this point.”
Enfinger and the No. 9 CR7 Motorsports team would remain winless through the opening 19 races of the season, but they would do enough to advance to the 10-driver NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Playoffs, and even worked their way into the Round of 8.
Then, the breakthrough finally occurred. Enfinger scored the first victory in the history of the CR7 Motorsports NASCAR Truck Series program at Talladega Superspeedway. The win would secure Enfinger’s advancement to the Championship 4. But he wouldn’t stop there. Enfinger would put the exclamation point on things with another win the following race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
In a two-race stretch, not only did Enfinger and CR7 go from a driver and team expected to finish in the bottom half of the Playoff field, but they found a way to win, and advance to the Championship 4, and they’ll get a chance to race for a championship on Friday night at Phoenix Raceway.
“It’s huge for any organization to make it to the Championship 4. You See how hard it is on every level. Truck, Xfinity, Cup, it’s a huge deal,” It’s a huge accomplishment. It’s very, very tough to get here.”
While Enfinger hopes to finally find the key to unlock that elusive first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship on Friday night, the persistent veteran racer is just elated to be back in the Championship 4 with another race team.
“I’m 39, hopefully, I can talk to you tomorrow night after hoisting our first championship in the Truck Series. Regardless of how it goes, I’m very, very proud of my maybe unconventional path to get here,” Enfinger said. “There’s maybe some regrets I have as far as stuff I’ve done, career-wise, but from just keeping after it and just working hard and maybe having the resilience to keep going, I’m very proud of that.”
Enfinger will get his first chance to tune up his No. 9 CR7 Motorsports Chevrolet Silverado for Friday’s Championship Race in NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series practice on Thursday at 7 PM ET.
The starting lineup will be finalized in Friday’s qualifying session, which will take place at 4:00 PM ET on FS2.
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Championship Race is set for Friday, November 8. That race will be televised on FS1 with coverage kicking off at 8:00 PM ET. The Motor Racing Network (MRN) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will carry the live radio call of the event.
