RICHMOND, Va. — The complexion of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series postseason picture shifted significantly amid a relatively smooth race, won in dominant style by Kaden Honeycutt. On the Chase bubble, the waters were anything but calm.
Grant Enfinger and Tyler Ankrum were among the postseason hopefuls who navigated the chop with a degree of dexterity in a Saturday matinee at Richmond Raceway, with the Black’s Tire 250 presented by BTS Rewards pushed back from its original Friday night date by storms. Enfinger and his CR7 Motorsports team padded their margin over the Chase cutline, sealing a near-virtual clinch into the 10-driver field with a deft bit of pit-stop strategy and a fifth-place finish. Ankrum and his McAnally-Hilgemann Racing group overcame an early pit-road penalty and wound up 11th, foiled slightly by an ill-timed caution flag in the final stage. His result, though, was enough to provisionally push him into the final Chase spot with one regular-season race remaining.
RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Richmond
Both drivers managed to avoid the pitfall that sank Stewart Friesen, whose tire trouble sent his No. 52 Toyota hard into the Turn 1 wall in the 216th of 250 laps, saddling him with a last-place finish and dropping him from eight points above the elimination line to 20 points below. They’ll settle the final battle for championship eligibility in next Saturday’s regular-season finale at New Hampshire Motor Speedway (1:30 p.m. ET, FS1, NASCAR Racing Network Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Even with a 20-point cushion in his bid to make the postseason for a third straight year, Ankrum wasn’t breathing any easier after Richmond.
“No, there is no relief until you’re done,” Ankrum said, laughing at the notion of bubble safety. “These guys are fierce competitors. I’ve been racing with them for a long time, and especially a guy like Friesen. I know that he wants to prove something. So until the checkered flag falls at New Hampshire, that’s when I’ll go have a cocktail and relax.”
Enfinger appeared to have the strongest bid to play Saturday spoiler, especially on a day when Honeycutt led 225 of 250 laps. The 41-year-old veteran finished third in both stages, stockpiling mid-race points, but crew chief Derek White opted for an alternate strategy in the last stage, running long before bringing the No. 9 Chevrolet in for a final pit stop and holding an extra set of tires as a trump card that other teams lacked.
Enfinger was leading when Friesen crashed, initiating the final pit-stop cycle under yellow. The run-long strategy trapped all but seven other trucks a lap down, and different timing could have stymied more.
“We have all the facts and all the data, and it was a gamble either way, so I just felt like we had to do what we had to do to put ourselves in a position to win,” White told NASCAR.com. “We had 15 laps, if a caution comes out, we trap them a lap down and then we’re sitting really pretty. If we get a caution with 10 to go, we’ve got a set of tires laying, and they don’t. We’re sitting really pretty there, too. So really, just had to try and do something different. We had a good, solid points day through both stages, which was what we needed. So that gave us the opportunity to try something different at that end.”
Enfinger had moved into Chase position four races ago, with a road-course victory at Lime Rock Park. He entered Richmond with a 26-point edge over the cutline, and post-race, he applauded White’s call to mix things up.
“I feel like the odds worked in our favor,” Enfinger said. “I just think that was kind of against the grain, and that took a lot of guts to do. … We’ve played it safe on all the stuff we can to make it through some of these races, so now we’ll start amping it up again for the Chase.”
Added White: “I think if I had to sit back and Monday morning quarterback and do it all over, I’d do the same thing again. So just super blessed and super fortunate for that.”
Ankrum’s day hit an early hitch when his crew bounded over the wall too soon on a pit stop during the Stage 1 intermission. The penalty knocked him back to 18th place, ground that he eventually regained with a charge back up to the fringes of the top five.
MORE: Craftsman Truck Series standings
Ankrum pitted just six laps before Friesen’s misfortune jumbled the strategy hopper, catching him one lap down in 15th. Post-race, he lamented the tough bounce over his No. 18 Chevrolet’s team radio.
“I felt like our second stage was our strongest, but man, I’ve come here so many times to Richmond, and just that green-flag cycle’s gotten me,” Ankrum said, “and we felt we felt like we were going to be smart this year and wait for the caution to fall because we know it was going to come. It’s come for the past three or four years, and it just came later than we expected. So one of these days, we’ll catch a break.
“Today is a huge improvement on the year in terms of our performance. Honestly, I felt like that was probably the best Richmond truck I’ve had in a long time, but yeah, just you need a little bit of luck to go your way, need to make a little bit of your own luck to go along with it, and you’ll keep on having days like we had today.”