Photo Credi: Jerry Markland/Getty Images
There truly is no place like home. Grant Enfinger realized a dream on Saturday Afternoon at Talladega SuperSpeedway by scoring his first Camping World Truck Series win in the fred’s 250 Powered by Coca Cola.
The Fairhope, Alabama native led a race high 45 laps and held off GMS Racing teammate Spencer Gallagher by .108 seconds to secure the first 1-2 finish ever for the organization.
“It’s unbelievable,” Enfinger said in victory lane. “This is a brand new truck, it was on the tubing rack a few weeks ago and (crew chief) Jeff Stankiewicz, Trevor Pollard, all these guys behind us built it, and it was a rocket ship. Best truck out there. Made my job easier.”
“I struggle to think of a racer with a reputation more sterling than Grant’s,” Gallagher said of Enfinger. “To use a baseball analogy, he is the true five-tool player. He is a great team player, he’s in the shop every day working on his own stuff, he is extraordinarily talented with a wrench in his hand and even more so with a wheel in his hand.
“At GMS, something we try to do is provide opportunities to people who deserve it, and there isn’t anybody I can think of more deserving of the opportunity and this win, than Grant Enfinger.”
Timothy Peters finished third followed by Rico Abreu and Ben Kennedy. Christopher Bell, Johnny Sauter, Ryan Truex, Matt Tifft, and William Byron rounded out the top ten.
Byron, Bell, Peters, Matt Crafton, Kennedy, and Sauter advanced to the Round of six in the Chase which starts at Martinsville next weekend, while John Hunter Nemechek and Daniel Hemric saw their championship dreams end on Saturday.
Nemechek was forced out of the race on Lap 13 when the engine expired on his No.8 Chevrolet. Nemechek finished 32nd on the afternoon.
Hemric finished 11th, but fell 13 points short of Crafton, whose engine problems occurred too late to be of help to Hemric, given that 10 other trucks already were in the garage when Crafton’s motor blew.
“Today was completely full of trials and trying to overcome things,” Hemric said. “All we can do now is try to win races. It wasn’t for lack of effort. We got involved in three or four different situations there and never had the opportunity to get back to the front.”
