Before racing even began on championship weekend at Phoenix Raceway, it was quickly observed that the restart line had been moved up closer to the exit of Turn 4, something that would keep the field bunched together even longer approaching the dogleg.
More on that later.
Corey Heim, the regular season champion, and championship favorite had things in control throughout the first half. Carson Hocevar ended up on a different strategy near the end of the second stage and had just gotten passed for the championship lead when everything started to unravel with 33 laps to go.
Hocevar turns Heim
Hocevar drove back under Heim, washed up the track while exiting the dogleg, and spun Heim into Stewart Friesen. The contact effectively ended both of their chances at the championship because Heim had right rear damage and Hocevar was still on older tires with less than 30 laps to go.
Hocevar drops
On the ensuing restart, despite having the championship lead, Hocevar dropped like a figurative rock. Before the restart, and then after the next caution a few laps later, Hocevar expressed remorse and sadness over the incident.
His heart clearly wasn’t in the ensuing restart.
He didn’t mean to do it, he said repeatedly, with Ben Rhodes and Grant Enfinger then taking their turns near the front to race for a championship.
More crashing
Remember that restart zone shift? Yeah, it produced countless crashes into the dogleg on Friday night, although the race craft generally left a lot to be desired throughout the race too. One crash in particular, with 20 laps to go featured Bayley Currey, Daniel Dye and Stefan Parsons, and brought the field right back together for another restart.
It also allowed Heim to get one more shot at new championship leaders Enfinger and Rhodes in third and fourth. Heim got to seventh on the restart but got stalled-out racing side-by-side with his own teammate, Jesse Love, who cost him several seconds.
“Stop fucking racing me,” he shouted over his team radio channel.
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Retaliation, probably
Grant Enfinger was driving away to his first Truck Series championship with four laps to go when Hocevar caught back up to Heim in seventh. Heim drifted up and squeezed Hocevar into the wall. Heim has denied it all night but the incident had all the hallmarks of a retaliatory action that not only, without a doubt ended the night for Hocevar and Heim, but seemingly cost Enfinger the championship too.
Enfinger was driving away from Rhodes. It was over until it wasn’t.
Rhodes can’t shift
Near the final stages of the race, Rhodes started to struggle to go from third gear into fourth. It got worse because he couldn’t get into second during the caution periods either. On the next restart, overtime No. 1, Rhodes pinched Enfinger, who fell all the way to ninth.
Enfinger, and crew chief Jeff Hensley, decided to pit for fresh tires and tape to maximize speed, grip and downforce. It was a Hail Mary by every definition.
Rhodes involved in crash
On the second overtime restart, leader Zane Smith missed a shift and Rhodes drove right into him, significantly damaging his right front fender. Enfinger started to make up ground but not nearly enough if they were done crashing.
But they were not.
Ty Majeski got spun by Love on the next restart and that allowed Enfinger to make up a few more spots. Remember, the best finishing driver of the final four contenders ends the night as the champion.
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Enfinger runs out of time
Enfinger made it to the rear bumper of the Rhodes truck on the final restart, a restart that included another big crash with Tyler Ankrum drilling the wall well before the leaders took the white flag but NASCAR did not call for a caution.
Race control very clearly put this race out of its figurative misery, but in the process, broke precedence and arguably denied Enfinger the championship he had clawed back to win yet again. That’s because Enfinger was on fresher tires, had no damage, and seemingly would have enjoyed an advantage over Rhodes for the next restart.
But it never came and Rhodes earned his second championship. Rhodes joins Ron Hornaday, Jack Sprague, Matt Crafton and Todd Bodine as the only multi-time champions in Truck Series history. Hornaday has four, Sprague and Crafton have three and Bodine and Rhodes have two.
What Hocevar said
“I just tried to do what I did in 3 and 4, stay on his back bumper and do everything I could to stay there,” Hocevar said. “My only goal was to slow him down so he didn’t get too many cars ahead of us. I was just trying to hold him up. I didn’t expect him to be low. I thought he was going to miss the corner the way he entered, I thought we were both going to slide job the corner, and I just messed up.
“I was just trying to roll the corner, committed to a slide job-ish, and thought he was going to slide and he never slid. Just dumb.”
Again, he expressed remorse.
“He should have won the championship,” Hocevar said. “I didn’t mean to do that. With my track record, it’s just going to kill me. I just fucked up. I screwed up. I was just trying too hard, messed up.”
As far as questions about his reputation, a driver that has enjoyed highs and lows this season across Trucks and Cup, Hocevar just said he couldn’t let go of the fact he cost Heim a championship.
“I don’t care about the reputation or any of that,” Hocevar said. “I just feel bad that I robbed him of that. I just feel sorry for them. I can’t say was by accident. I just messed up.”
What about the apparent retaliation?
“Was there a move,” Hocevar said. “I don’t know. I deserved it if it were whatever. I just messed up and I didn’t want to run the rest of the laps. I wanted to crawl into a hole. I tried so hard. I am trying to be better and I was just trying to stay with him and I needed to give up and I don’t know how in that moment. … I was just trying to hold him up long enough for a yellow and I messed up.
What Enfinger said
The second incident between Heim and Hocevar, intentional or not, likely cost him the Truck Series championship and a championship for a team in GMS Racing that is shutting down after tonight.
“It’s frustrating,” Enfinger said. “I didn’t see this coming. I thought it would be about winning the race and it was about survival. We all had destroyed trucks by the end.
“I don’t know what I would do different. Just an unfortunate way to send out GMS Racing. We had the championship in our grasp with three to go and it just went away.
…
“With this championship format, it’s just guys racing really hard,” Enfinger said. “The way the restart zone is, we just kind of manufactured it in a way.”
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Oh yeah, the restart zone
NASCAR conceded that the restart zone was moved up, painted in the wrong spot, in error despite the old restart zone still being visible. NASCAR said it consulted teams before the race and they opted to keep it in the same spot until Saturday and Sunday.
With that said, the restart zone will return to its previous spot further back into Turn 4 for the remaining two championship races.
Rhodes embarrassed, celebratory
Crew chief Rich Lushes, who has now won two Truck Series championships in three years with Rhodes, summed it up succinctly afterward.
“That was one of the craziest Phoenix races I’ve ever seen,” he said.
Lushes thanked Enfinger for not dumping Rhodes, something he certainly could have done, and even said he would have understood it.
“100 percent,” he said. “He could have easily went in there and dumped us, and it’s a racing deal, and that’s how everybody else raced tonight. Luckily Grant raced us clean and fair. Grant had nothing to lose tonight because GMS is shutting down tomorrow, so yeah, if dumped us, I’d have been completely upset but I would have also understood.”
Rhodes, while relieved and excited to have won, also feels a lot of ill things about how everyone collectively got there.
“Well, let me tell you what, man,” he said. “Was it 26 laps of overtime? It was something like that. I was getting frustrated I’m not going to lie. I thought even if we won the championship — I am very sorry. That was embarrassing.
“I’m telling you, listen, it was like 26 laps of overtime. I thought even if we won it, I would be so mad — I ain’t mad. I just let it roll right off the shoulders. … Mentally, I was pretty angry.”
But on the heartwarming note, Rhodes is 26 and has become something of a veteran, with nine years on the tour and eight of them full-time with ThorSport.
That stat still blows him away because he feels like it wouldn’t have lasted to this point.
“2018, I’m like done,” Rhodes said. “I’m like, hey, Duke (Thorson, team owner), I’m out. We ain’t got no sponsorship. Hey, bye-bye. I told everybody bye-bye. Then he called me a couple weeks later and said, we’ll find a way. I think the quote was, ‘Ben has got to race.’
“Duke has been like a father figure to me in a lot of ways. They said, ‘when are you going to go to Cup?’ I said, “Look, I’m having a lot of fun in the Truck Series with ThorSport right now.’
“They’ve done so much for me. They gave me my big break. They gave me my opportunity. We’ve won now two championships together, two owners’ championships, and what I love most about ThorSport Racing is the culture.”
Rhodes says having dinner virtually every night with the Thorsons cementing that bond.
“I go up there and Duke teaches me things about other than racing,” Rhodes said. “We have dinner every night and it’s everything not to do with racing, and it’s usually like business experience, it’s just life, and it’s stuff from his age and all of his life experience that he teaches us and just having fun, too.
“That’s invaluable to me. I love it. I’d change it for nothing.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.