In theory, Grant Enfinger couldn’t possibly have a second NASCAR Truck Series Playoffs round that goes worse than the past three races.
Despite it all, Enfinger lived to fight another day with a ninth-place finish on Friday night at Kansas Speedway. At the same time, two-time and defending champion Ben Rhodes was eliminated alongside Daniel Dye because they had awful races at Bristol and then Kansas.
After his 17th place finish at Bristol last week, Enfinger wasn’t even sure his CR7 team belonged in the playoffs, at least not the way they had performed leading up to these most consequential races. They still didn’t on Friday but again, Enfinger and crew chief Jeff Stankiewicz have a chance to do better at Talladega, Homestead-Miami and Martinsville.
“This is a round we want to forget, we snuck in and now we can look forward to Talladega,” Enfinger said.
Rhodes attempted to make it to the end by staying out and stretching fuel mileage but ran out on the last lap. Enfinger did the same, just to cover Rhodes, and made it to the end so that’s where sneaking in comes from.
Enfinger will now begin these next three races below the cutline needing to find a way to make ground over some of the best team-driver combinations in the division this season.
The advanced
Heim, who already locked himself into the second round last week on points, added five more playoff points to his second round total by winning from the 33rd starting spot.
“Just a deep sigh of relief. I mean, we were just the best truck all night. Huge thank you to my TRICON Garage guys,” Heim said in his post-race interview. “This is my favorite track, I love coming here. I look forward to this, I had a smile on my face all week coming to this place. Just glad I could sweep the year here.”
Ty Majeski swept the first two stages from the pole, earning two more playoff points for his second round total, but ran out of gas on the last lap.
“Obviously we were trying to max save fuel but also manage the gap to the 11,” Majeski said. “I felt like I saved as much as I could and still put myself in position to win. The math just didn’t add up tonight. We had a good Ford F-150.
“I don’t regret the call because that was our only shot to win and there were only three laps that mattered to us tonight, the end of Stage 1 for a playoff point, the end of Stage 2 for a playoff point and the end of the race for five. We just went for the win and it didn’t pan out tonight.”
Taylor Gray held on to advance after being involved in a late crash.
“I can’t thank all of my guys enough. Jeff Hensley (crew chief) on the box for bringing me a fast A Place of Hope Tundra TRD Pro,” Gray said. “Obviously, had a really fast truck. Had a good stage one and stage two, starting so far in the back and able to make up a lot of ground there. Unfortunately, I’m having some issues with the right front under pit stops. We left pit road for the start of stage three and I had a right front rub and I had to come back down and clear it and just got back in the pack and just got wrecked. Overall, good to move on to the Round of 8 and just start over.”
The eliminated
Rhodes suffered though a car that was extremely loose, one that prevented him from being able to hold onto a top-10 running position and staying out to stretch it on fuel was the only recourse left to get a top-10 and outscore Enfinger by seven points.
He lost too many positions even before running out of fuel.
“I was trying to stay in traffic to save as much fuel as I could and also manage the tires but ultimately where I was running it was too little too late,” Rhodes said. “When we fired off something was wrong with the truck to start the race. We made massive adjustments and it didn’t seem like anything was fixing it. I think somehow our bar load got away from us. We have to go back and see what happened there.
“All in all, I hate it for Kubota and all of our partners and everyone at ThorSport Racing who work really hard. I wanted to give them a championship run. It comes and goes like that. We have had three really good seasons in the past with a first, second and first. I wish we had a better season all around. When you don’t have the finishes and the running positions to get the stage points, it leads to this.”
Dye did not fire off well from the start of the race, hitting the wall twice within the first 15 laps, losing several laps due to resulting pit stops and was a non-factor. Like Rhodes, Dye began the playoffs with a solid top-10 at Milwaukee Mile but the season went off the rails with misfortune and struggles at Bristol and Kansas.
Outlook
The top four in points are there for a reason.
They have been the best teams all season and its going to take herculean efforts for those below the cutline to advance into the final four at Phoenix over them. Some misfortune striking them could do it too, especially with one of the three races in these semi-finals taking place at Talladega, with the looming threat of the Big One hanging over everyone as well.