Grant Enfinger’s Chevrolet Silverado finally turned into a pumpkin at the Phoenix Raceway.
A fifth-place finish only netted Enfinger a fourth-place points finish, ending his Cinderella run in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship race.
It was a year for Enfinger and CR7 Motorsports that perfectly encapsulated the underdog story that everyone loves to root for.
On Friday night, however, the No. 9 team had neither the speed nor the strategy to upend the dominant run put forth by eventual race winner and champion Ty Majeski.
Enfinger, along with fellow Championship Four driver Christian Eckes, pitted with 38 laps to go in order to gain a tire advantage, putting both drivers on offense for the race’s final green flag run.
While Eckes and Enfinger were able to make their way back into the top-five, neither driver had anything for Majeski or runner-up finisher Corey Heim.
“I think we’ve proven to ourselves and our competitors that we can do this, we can compete for wins and contend for championships,” Enfinger said. “I’m really proud of the group we’ve had all year, the buying in from everybody we’ve had all year. We still have a long way to go from an organization (standpoint) to get us to a point where me and (crew chief) Jeff, (Stankiewicz) and Sheldon and (team owner) Codie (Rohrbaugh) envision.”
“I’m proud of how far we’ve come. I feel like we earned out spot here. At the end of the day, we just didn’t have the speed like the No. 11 and the No. 98.”
