Grant enfinger passed Matt Crafton with only seven out of the two hundred and fifty laps remaining which earned him his third victory in the Nascar Truck series regular at Richmond Raceway.
Enfinger made a comeback from an incident he had experienced in the early sections of the last stage after his truck developed a tyre rub forcing him to pit following contact with his ThorSport teammate Ben Rhodes.
Grant Enfinger got back on the lead-lap and gradually worked his way back to the top, eventually passing teammate Crafton with only seven laps to go, closing the regular season the same way he began it in Victory Lane. This is his fifth career victory.
Matt Crafton came in second and Rhodes third making it a 1-2-3 win for ThorSport Racing. Brett Moffitt finished fourth and GMS Racing Tyler Ankrum rounded up the top five spots for the race.
“Man, definitely a special night for us…It’s been a rough couple months. Even though we got the year started off pretty good, it’s been a rough couple months. We catch a little flack every now and then but we had three F-150s at ThorSport Racing that could have won the race tonight and I’m proud of that.” Enfinger said.
“Matt seemed like he wanted to run the bottom but we ran the center really good. That was our advantage on the long run. We’ve been beating our heads against the wall lately but I feel like we’re going into the playoffs with some momentum.”
Following a break between stage two and three, many trucks headed for the pits but Ben Rhodes in the No.99 ThorSport truck remained on the track and in the lead even after the race restart on lap 153, Enfinger managed to grab back the lead after the restart but a lap later Rhodes reclaimed the lead. This move made Enfinger’s No.98 Ford get a tyre rub.
Austin Wayne got himself spinning on turn one in an incident that also got ThorSport Racing’s Johny Sauter bringing out the caution as the drivers elected to pit.
Moffitt went four-wide in Turns 1 and 2 on the restart to go from 12th to fourth in one lap. On Lap 187, he got around Rhodes to take the lead for the first time in the race. On Lap 196, Crafton managed to move into the runner-up spot, less than a second behind Moffitt but Crafton finally ran down and passed Moffitt for the lead on Lap 219.With 15 laps remaining in the race, Crafton had built a 1.7-second lead over Grant Enfinger with Moffitt in third.Enfinger closed to Crafton’s rear bumper with 10 laps to go, hoping to challenge him one final time for the lead.
Enfinger cleared Crafton with seven laps remaining to take the lead for the third time in the race.
