After wrecking at the end of practice earlier in the day, Grant Enfinger rallied to win the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Lime Rock Park. The win is Enfinger’s first in almost two years.
Enfinger was awarded the lead after a late-race restart, with Gio Ruggiero and Landen Lewis battling hard as they went up through the gears. Enfinger went by the two and held off Lewis over the final two laps to win.
“This was sadly our best chance to win at a road course. We had our issues in all three of them, but today we had our issues in practice,” Enfinger told FOX Sports. “I saw what happened in the ARCA race, and I didn’t want to line up third and push my way to the win. I know that’s common these days, and I wanted to beat them straight up on the outside.”
Lewis ended up second, with Kaden Honeycutt finishing third. Honeycutt was apart of a dominant duo in the race, as he and Layne Riggs were the trucks to beat through the first two stages before a spin put them both outside of the top 10. Riggs ended up finishing 23rd.
Parker Kligerman finished fourth, with Christian Eckes crossing the line in fifth.
Daniel Hermic, Andres Perez, Tanner Gray, Stewart Friesen and Colin Braun rounded out the top 10 at the Connecticut road course.
After starting on the pole, Riggs opened up the 100-lap race still proving to be the strongest truck in the field. He held sole possession of the lead by the time the field exited turn 1, and by lap 3, he had a lead of just about a second.
As the field worked halfway through the opening stage, it looked as if Honeycutt was faster than Riggs on the longer runs. However, just as the lead had been cut to under half of a second, Riggs began to pull away again. Riggs won the opening stage with a lead just over a second in length over Honeycutt.
Opening the second stage, Honeycutt kept himself closer to Riggs on the initial lap after the restart. The two separated themselves from the remainder of the field, gapping them by almost two seconds within the first four laps of the run.
The battle between Honeycutt and Riggs waged on for a number of laps, with the two nose to tail for most of the 1.5-mile course. A caution would fly before any lead change could be made, however, as Ty Majeski buried himself in the tire barriers off of turn 1.
On the subsequent restart, chaos ensued before the field even got to the start-finish line. Lewis came across the nose of Connor Mosack, turning him around in front of the grouped-up field. Mosack, Lewis and Ben Rhodes all sustained damage, with a number of other front runners also getting a piece of the incident as well.
The field was only green for a few thousand feet, but it was enough for Honeycutt to take the lead from Riggs, giving him control of the restart with three laps left in stage two. Utilizing that control of the restart, Honeycutt held off Riggs for the short dash to the stage finish, capturing the green-and-white checkered flag.
The first two stages of the race were relatively calm, but the third stage proved otherwise.
With the lengthy caution for cleanup late in stage two, many trucks flipped the stage and pitted early. This buried Honeycutt and Riggs, and set up for Cole Butcher and Friesen to restart on the front row. Butcher emerged with the lead, but the caution flew once again for debris just as the field came back around to the start-finish line. The debris came from the truck of Kris Wright, who was spun and lost a few hoses out of the rear of the vehicle.
In the brief one-lap run between cautions, Honeycutt and Riggs showed that they were still the class of the field, despite being buried back in the field for the first time in the race. They both worked themselves inside the top 10 in the single lap of green flag racing.
Another lengthy cleanup period put the field under a red flag, setting up yet another restart with 26 laps to go, and it changed the outlook of the race as a whole. Butcher and Friesen made contact for the lead into turn one, spinning the No. 52 into the grass. However, a number of trucks behind joined Friesen in the grass after ensuing contact including Corey LaJoie, Riggs and Honeycutt This gave Ruggiero the lead over Thomas Annunziata and Lewis, leaving only Butcher left in the top five from the leaders on the restart.
The chaos up front did not settle for long, as Chandler Smith stalled on track four laps later bringing out yet another caution. However, the lead group continued to shuffle and change even under caution. Annunziata’s truck caught fire under caution, forcing the 21-year-old to get out and end his day early. Annunziata was transported to a local hospital after the race.
Cautions and incidents became wild in the closing laps. Gray and Braun collided on the backstretch, but no caution flew. A few laps later, LaJoie, Wesley Slimp and Dawson Sutton spun off track, with LaJoie stalling and bringing out the yellow once again.
The story of the two dominant trucks had gone two very separate ways at this point. Honeycutt worked his way up just outside of the top five with under 10 laps to go, and Riggs fell a lap down after pitting for extensive repairs from the earlier incident.
LaJoie’s No. 10 truck spilled its share of fluid on the track, setting up another period of lengthy cleanup. The field was given the green flag with just three laps to go, with Ruggiero and Enfinger on the front row.
The final restart of the race offered perhaps the most chaos all race long. Ruggiero and Lewis made contact in the restart zone, slowing both and allowing Enfinger to escape with the lead.
Moments later, it was the TRICON Garage teammates of Honeycutt and Ruggiero making contact as the field headed towards the back half of the circuit, with Ruggiero going around into the grass off of the No. 11’s front bumper.
A number of other trucks found themselves off track, but it was Enfinger who stayed on course, holding off Lewis and cruising to victory lane.
Truck Series Results at Lime Rock
Next week, the truckers head to the famed North Wilkesboro Speedway for their third visit to the track since its reopening, and first that’s coupled with a Cup Series points event. The green flag for the Faithfest 250 will fly at 12:30 p.m. ET, with the race airing on FOX Sports 1.
Josh joined Frontstretch in 2023 and currently covers the ARCA Menards Series. Born and raised in Missouri, Josh has been watching motorsports since 2005. He currently is studying for a Mass Communication degree at Lindenwood University
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