KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Grant Enfinger entered Saturday’s (Sep 26) RacetoStopSuicide.com 200 sixth in the standings looking to make a splash that would get him closer to the main championship fight between Layne Riggs and Kaden Honeycutt.
He put himself in the conversation numerous times but ultimately didn’t walk away with a result that helped his title campaign.
Rather, it doubled his deficit.
“We came in here with the mindset that we needed to gamble. We weren’t throwing Hail Marys,” Enfinger said post-race. “I felt like we made gambles that could maybe go in our favor.”
Enfinger was absolutely correct that either of the two major gambles the No. 9 team made in the race could have ended in them getting to victory lane. The first one had all the makings of getting him there, but NASCAR’s sanctioning body had the patience to wait out the storms that have plagued this weekend’s festivities.
Enfinger had stayed out of pit road at the conclusion of stage two while majority of the field had their service done. Upon the restart, he found himself in the lead as weather rolled into the area. The field only made it two turns before a caution struck, and then the skies opened up.
The Alabama native held on to the lead for the next four hours and 47 minutes under the rain delay before eventually the race resumed. Even while on older tires, Enfinger was holding strong in the top 10 and even found himself in the top five when the field pitted again. For a moment, the No. 9’s gamble to stay out before the rain was still paying off in their favor.
However, the team later on in the going made a call for two tires in the closing stages of the race. Once one caution flew, along came another and another. As cautions bred cautions, the danger for Enfinger mired in the field grew.
Finally, with a little over 10 laps to go, the CR7 Motorsports truck was caught in the melee on a late race restart.
Enfinger cut a tire entering turn 3 and then slowed to a halt against the wall, which brought out the yellow. The truck quickly refired once the caution flew, and got back going before the leaders could over take him.
It was much to the sanctioning body’s dismay, and NASCAR to hold Enfinger on pit road for two laps.
“I had the oil pressure light came on and I shut off and then I hesitated,” Enfinger said. “I could have safely made it to pit road, they did the right thing penalizing me, but at the time I didn’t think so.”
While the narrative of this weekend for Enfinger would be completely different if either call went his way, he lamented more on the mistakes that he made during the race that set them behind the eight-ball like speeding on pit road.
“It was a terrible ending to what was otherwise could have been a great day,” the CR7 Motorsports racer punctuated.
Enfinger finds himself in a 118 point hole heading into the remainder of the Chase.
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