Category: Truck Series

2017 was the fifth season in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series for Grant Enfinger. He made all 23 starts in the series driving for the no.98 Thorsport Racing entry.

In the season opener at Daytona International Raceway, Enfinger and the no.98 team started eleventh and finished 16th, one lap down. After putting Daytona behind them, the team had up and down finishes for the rest of the year. But, at Dover the sixth race of the season Enfinger finished third. It was his first top five finish since his win at Talladega Superspeedway in 2016. He continued to have great finishes inside the top five until Kentucky, where on lap 41 Enfinger was involved in a crash that regulated him to a 28th place finish. That was his first DNF since the 2012 race at Rockingham, where on that day, he finished 36th due to a blown transmission.

“They just crashed in front of us there,” Enfinger said. “I think it was everybody just being aggressive on restarts, but you’ve got to be. It’s so hard to pass. It’s just crazy on these restarts. It’s what makes the Camping World Truck Series so exciting, but you’ve got to go for it on those restarts, unfortunately.”

Despite not finishing the Kentucky race and having two finishes outside the top ten at Pocono, and Canada, Enfinger was back in the top five running order at Chicago by finishing fifth. His only other finishes that did not come in the top ten was at Martinsville (12th) and Phoenix (crash, 24th).

At the end of the year, Enfinger and the no.98 Thorsport Racing team finished eighth at the season finale Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“Overall it was an ok night here for us at Homestead,” Enfinger said. “Really, we wanted to have a better run that this, but ended up eighth. We were decent at the beginning of the race, when we had some track position. We gave it up a little bit, about a third of the way through the race, and we just weren’t great enough to overcome that. We finished eighth, but maybe had about a sixth-place truck there at the end. I’m proud of the effort that everyone put in – everyone really dug deep all year. We know the areas we have to work on. There’s no one big area that we’re down on, we just need to step it up in a few places, and we’ll be a contender.”

As the final checkered flag flew at the 1.5 mile track in southern Florida, Enfinger collected nine top five and 15 top ten finishes, with two DNF’s and led 41 laps. This saw him have an average start of 11.0 and an average finish of 9.4.

To follow up to date on Grant Enfinger, you can follow his Twitter page @GrantEnfinger and his Instagram page @GrantEnfinger.

The 2017 season got off to a rocky start for the sensational Kyle Busch Motorsports rookie. Gragson did not even get to complete a lap before he was involved in the infamous “big one” at Daytona International Speedway. Not a good way to start your rookie season. It took Gragson a little bit to get used to the truck, but at the paperclip in Martinsville, he collected a top five finish when finishing fourth. Keep Martinsville in the back of your minds because that will come up later.

After not finishing the Kansas race due to clutch problems, Noah finished inside the top ten six times and once in the top five until Pocono, where he was involved in a crash that took him out of the race on lap 39 thus ending his consecutive streak of finishing inside the top ten.

“I made a mistake at the end of the first stage that set us behind and kind of hurt us from there on,”Gragson said. “I slid through the box on my pit stop and got a lap down, and then just had to battle back in the second stage. I got the free pass and was passing trucks in the third stage and went off into turn one, but I didn’t know we were three-wide. The spotter called me three-wide super late and I came down the race track, got hit and pounded the wall pretty hard with my Switch Tundra.”

Despite getting taken out of the Pocono race, he rebounded and finished inside the top ten once more at Michigan collecting a seventh place. Gragson’s season moment shined at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, where he started sixth and finished second. It would be his best career finish up to that point of the season.

When the playoffs started, Gragson missed championship hunt by just a few points but that did not mean he couldn’t compete for wins. On a fall day in Martinsville, the second race of the season, he took the lead on a late race restart and held off veteran Matt Crafton for his first ever career series win.

“All the hard work finally paid off. I’ve had the monkey on my back this whole year,” he said. “I’ve been asked pretty much every day when are you going to get that win? When are we going to put up a banner at Kyle Busch Motorsports? I’m just thankful for everyone who has brought me up through the ranks racing. I’m so very thankful.”

At Homestead, the Las Vegas, Nevada driver wound up finishing 18th in the final race of the year.

“That was a disappointing way to end the season,” Gragson said. “Our Switch Tundra started out really loose in the first stage, but we kept working on it during every pit stop. I thought by the final stage we’d have a really competitive truck, but a flat tire took us out of contention. I don’t know if I ran over something, or what, but it certainly wasn’t how any of us wanted to end our season.”

When the 2017 season was over, Gragson would collect one win, four top fives and 13 top ten finishes, with an average start 6.7 and an average finish of 11.6, including four DNF’s, 187 laps led and three career poles.

You can follow Noah’s interesting adventures on Twitter @NoahGragson and on Instagram @NoahGragson.

The 2017 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series was an interesting one for Myatt Snider to say the least. The 23-year old made just eight starts in the no.51 Louisiana Hot Sauce Toyota Tundra. Those eight starts came at Daytona, Fort Worth, Kentucky, Chicago, Las Vegas, Talladega, Fort Worth and Homestead. In his 2017 season, he only suffered two DNF’s which came at Texas and Las Vegas in which Snider was involved in crashes.

The son of NBC commentator Marty Snider averaged a 10.5 start and an average finish of 13.4. Snider’s best finish of the year came at the famed Talladega Superspeedway where he finished third. While other finishes include tenth at Daytona, 16th at Texas and Kentucky, tenth at Chicago, 28th at Las Vegas (DNF), 12th at Fort Worth and Homestead.

By having these finishes, Myatt collected one top five and three top ten finishes, with 26 laps led. His best qualifying start was at Kentucky where he started sixth. Despite having two DNF’s in his eight starts, he was not happy with a 12th place finish to end the season but was glad to be apart of Kyle Busch Motorsports.

“Well, I’m disappointed I wasn’t able to earn the Owner’s Championship for my guys, because they deserved it,” Snider said. “My team worked hard all year to bring me fast trucks and they never gave up on me like I never gave up on them. We were just a little off tonight and couldn’t get the handling quite right. But, I want to thank everyone at KBM, Kyle (Busch), Liberty Tax Service, Louisiana Hot Sauce and everyone else who made this year possible for me. I learned a lot and enjoyed every minute of the experience.”

Myatt Snider is on Twitter @MyattSnider and on Instagram @Myatt_Snider. Louisiana Hot Sauce racing’s twitter page is @Lhsracing.

The 2017 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series was an interesting one for the no.52 Halmar Racing driver Stewart Friesen. Friesen, who was in his second season, made 19 starts out of 23. In 2016, he was only made six starts.

In the season opener at Daytona, Friesen only got to complete at least two laps due to a major accident on the front stretch that took out most of the field. What a way to start the season. In the coming week at Atlanta, he would put that disastrous start behind him to finish 19th after starting 20th. At Kansas, Dover, Fort Worth, Bristol and Las Vegas he wound up not finishing those races due to mechanical issues and being involved in a couple of crashes.

Friesen’s season really shined at Eldora Speedway in July. The current dirt track racer used his experience on dirt to start on the pole after the heat races and would go on to finish second behind race winner and two time champion Matt Crafton. This would be the best finish of the 34-year old’s career and the highlight of his season despite not qualifying at Gateway and Iowa.

Friesen averaged a 16.4 start and had an average finish of 17.2 with 103 laps led. During the 2017 season, he collected two top five and five top ten finishes. He finished the season at Homestead with a seventh place finish. In the meantime, Friesen will be racing in his dirt modified and sprint cars before the 2018 season starts.

Stewart Friesen’s Twitter handle is @StewartFriesen and his team handle is @HalmarRacing.

For more information on Stewart Friesen and Halmar Racing, you may visit his website at www.stewartfriesen.net

The 2017 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver analysis continues with Austin Wayne Self. Wayne self was making his second year start in the Truck Series. Last year, he completed all but one race while in 2017, Wayne Self raced in 18 of the scheduled 23.

Like most drivers, his season started at the famed Daytona International Speedway in February driving the no.32 AM Technical Solutions for Tim Self and it almost turned out to be an upset win. On the very last lap, there was a multi vehicle accident that included several of the top contenders battling for the win. Wayne Self was able to escape disaster and tried to catch eventual race winner Kaz Grala. However, he had to settle for a second place finish the best of his career.

Throughout the season, he drove for various owners such as Al Niece, Craig Martins and Shane Lamb. Since that best career finish at Daytona, Wayne Self did not compete again until the fourth race of the season at Kansas Speedway, where he started 21st and finished 15th. A week later at Charlotte he finished  in the twelfth position. Although, Wayne Self suffered a couple of setbacks at Fort Worth by finishing 12th in a crash and 23rd at Iowa due to another crash. He would go on to have four DNF’s at Bristol (parked), Las Vegas (crash), Martinsville (engine) and Phoenix (engine).

Otherwise, Wayne Self would collect one top five and two top ten finishes, with an average start of 20.6 and an average finish of 17.1. In his last race of the season at Homestead, he started 18th and finished 17th to end the 2017 NASCAR Truck Series season. Wayne Self will be ready to go once the 2018 season starts.

“We certainly have a lot to be thankful for this season,” Self said. “To open our year up with a second-place finish at Daytona – almost a win. That’s pretty incredible. I was proud of that.”

“I’m ready to go,” he said. “You know, I’m very fortunate. I have a lot of great partners that have allowed me to thrive this season and they’re all coming back next year.”

“Without the support of Don’t mess with Texas, GO TEXAN AM Technical Solutions and B&D Industries Inc. – there would be no Austin Wayne Self on the race track,” Self said. “We’re working hard on some awesome things both on and off the track next year and it’s hard to believe that Daytona will be here in less than 90 days.”

You can follow Austin on Twitter @AustinWSelf and his team @AMRacingNASCAR.