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Nick Sanchez Sounds Off After Forced Spoiler Check Leads to 22nd-Place Finish

TALLADEGA, Ala. — While Grant Enfinger burned rubber on the Talladega Superspeedway frontstretch Friday (Oct. 4) evening, Nick Sanchez hopped out of his truck and took off down pit road.

After recording a 22nd-place finish, Sanchez returned back to the pit road bullpen where he voiced grievances with NASCAR for forcing the No. 2 truck to return to pit road before what ended up becoming the final restart.

“I got fixed up, I got everything settled after that last spin, and NASCAR made me come down again after the one to go to check the spoiler,” Sanchez told Frontstretch. “I came back down again, and they OK’d it, and yeah. Then I’m just by myself at Talladega, doing laps by myself with nine to go. So yeah, that kind of screwed the end of my day.

“I’m just really not happy. Whatever they’ve got going on here cost me valuable points for my championship when they OK’d it.”

Before the spoiler check, Sanchez already had a wild day on his own. It began when he spun off the nose of Connor Zilisch while leading the outside lane with three laps left in stage two.

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Sanchez sustained left-side damage, but he fought back to the front, only to spin from the lead again on lap 71.

Repairing the truck from a second spin, Sanchez claimed that the accident led to a miscommunication between the NASCAR officials around the track.

“The officials on pit road said it’s okay and the officials in the tower apparently could see the spoiler angle of my truck sitting in box 27,” Sanchez said. “I don’t like to get them involved, because at the end of the day, racing should be on the track, and I feel like today that was not the case.”

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Frontstretch‘s Bryan Nolen, speaking with Sanchez, asked, “Will you speak with NASCAR about this?”

“What are you going to do, right?” Sanchez responded with a smile. “They can’t give me 15 positions that I lost, or whatever that was, so all you can try to do is go to Homestead and go to Martinsville and try to win and screw everything else.”

On the day, the two-time Truck winner did not score any stage points despite having one of the fastest trucks, and Sanchez leaves Talladega 20 points below the cut line.

About the author

Caleb began sports writing in 2023 with The Liberty Champion, where he officially covered his first NASCAR race at Richmond in the spring. While there, Caleb met some of the guys from Frontstretch, and he joined the video editing team after graduating from Liberty University with degrees in Strategic Communications and Sports Journalism. Caleb currently work full-time as a Multi-Media Journalist with LEX 18 News in Lexington, Kentucky and contributes to Frontstretch with writing and video editing. He's also behind-the-scenes or on camera for the Happy Hour Podcast, live every Tuesday night at 7:30!

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gbvette

The TV broadcast showed his crew working on the spoiler during a yellow and I immediately wondered if he was going to pass post race inspection. Apparently, the NASCAR officials saw the same thing and decided not to wait till the race was over to check it.