Photo: Nigel Kinrade Photography)
By Aaron Bearden

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.. — Post-race review and analysis from the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series opener at Daytona International Speedway. 

Who Won? 

Grant Enfinger. He fended off a host of underdogs to open his 2020 season with a win.

Who Won the Stages?

Riley Herbst and Grant Enfinger.

Race Results

Top Stories

Enfinger’s Return to Victory lane

Grant Enfinger had spent a full season waiting for the elation of another win. He’d contended in numerous races and even won the Regular Season title, but victory lane eluded the Alabamian for the entire 2019 season. He ended the year on a 28-race winless streak in NASCAR’s third tour.

That all drew to a close with the 2020 season opener at Daytona International Speedway.

Enfinger survived the Big One, chose the correct lane for the final restart and fended off a hard-charging Jordan Anderson in the sprint to the checkered flag to claim Friday’s race by just .010 seconds.

Afterward, he pulled up to the flag stand, retrieved the checkered flag and waved it at the crowd – soaking in the glory of a win at NASCAR’s top track.

“It’s an unbelievable feeling,” Enfinger said. “It’s the 100th win for Ford in the series–unbelievable for them. God’s blessed us with a great opportunity to come out here and pull it off tonight.”

There was a time late in the race where Enfinger’s win seemed improbable. A mistaken block after a late restart sent him careening through the field.

That left Enfinger deep in the pack, but he reset and marched back through the field.

“The biggest thing is we had a really good F-150 to do it with,” he said. “I made a mistake there with about 20 to go and got hung up there in the sucker hole. I pulled up in front of Ben (Rhodes) too late, and it was either going to wreck me or put me in the middle, and that’s what happened.

“It got to be about four or five laps to go, and it was time to go. We were able to get up in the third groove and make some stuff happen and get the lead during that last big wreck.”

With Friday’s win in the bag, Enfinger is locked into his third-consecutive playoff appearance. Now he can spend the rest of the regular season battling for wins and playoff points – a bonus that could prove critical given hos easily his season fell apart in the first round of the 2019 playoff.

Jordan Anderon’s big day

Rarely in motorsports has second place felt more like a win.

Jordan Anderson endured an offseason of worry heading into Friday’s Truck Series opener. He had shown promise in a 2019 building year, but making the next step amid a Truck field filling with strong newcomers meant he would need to invest in himself and his team.

The South Carolinian did just that heading into Daytona International Speedway. He joined Chevrolet in an alliance with AM Racing, found a sponsor in K-Seal and put money into fielding a strong truck for the opening race.

Each decision was a risk, but he and his employees – all six of them combined – believed in themselves.

After their result on Friday, many others may be inspired to believe, too.

Anderson dodged the field-shortening wreck with three laps left and played the final restart perfectly to find himself second on the final lap. He gave leader Grant Enfinger a strong push through the lap, and coming off of Turn 4 knew the battle for the win would come down to the pair.

He went high, got alongside Enfinger and even surged ahead at one point. But Enfinger battled back with a timely door bounce to regain the momentum. He narrowly edged out Anderson at the line, denying him the win.

In the immediate aftermath of the race, Anderson lamented that final run to the checkered flag. He took exception to Enfinger’s door-slam, saying that he “wouldn’t want to win my first race like that.”

The 28-year-old watched on as Enfinger celebrated at the start-finish line, and he wanted to be out there doing his own burnouts. But it didn’t matter in the moment: Friday’s finish still felt like a win.

“This is so big for our team, financially,” Anderson said. “Because if this truck didn’t survive, I didn’t know what I was going to do for Talladega. We have a truck for Talladega, the money is really going to help us, and we just have momentum.

“This is really big (for) all those guys who work in our shop. We talk about ROI for sponsors, it’s hard to give them much more than this.”

Anderson has attained a cult-like following over the past five years, steading building in NASCAR’s third series with a grassroots effort that he shares on social media. He barely kept afloat in part-time rides through the mid-2010s, and even when he launched his own team in 2018, Anderson had to haul his machinery to tracks in a dually.

Through willpower, a few good connections and the occasional help from fans – literally, Anderson sometimes launched a “Fueled by Fans” campaign to help him purchase equipment – the Truck Series stalwart methodically established himself in the tour.

All of the long drives in the dually and risky purchase decisions led Anderson to a taste of glory at NASCAR’s most important track. He hopes it inspires others who dream of doing the same.

“Hopefully it’s for every underdog in America,” Anderson said. “Every kid that stays up late and works on his dirt late model or his legend car and dreams to come here to Daytona. Hopefully this finish tonight encourages them to never give up on their dreams. That you can’t come here and compete in NASCAR without having $1 million sponsors.

“You can come here and fight and claw and dig and tell everybody that says you can’t do it. Prove them wrong and be here. This is for all those kids that are out there fighting for it.”

Chaos and crashes

Before underdogs could rise and Enfinger could triumph, calamity befell the Truck Series field.

On Lap 16 of the 100-lap scheduled distance, a bump gone wrong from Todd Gilliland to Tate Fogleman at the exit of the trioval sent Fogleman’s No. 02 into a spin.

From there it was bedlam.

Multiple drivers wound up in the crash, ranging from Austin Wayne Self to Brennan Poole. But the worst of the group was Ty Majeski, whose No. 45 ended up overturned and sliding on its lid until it came to a stop in the Turn 1 apron.

Majeski was unhurt in the crash.

“That was nothing like I’ve ever experienced before,” Majeski said. “Just unfortunate for our night to end that early.”

“That wreck was just a product of this racing,” he later continued. “We had planned maybe to get out of there if we could. We were kind of rolling there on the bottom and in a safe spot.”

Another sizable incident occurred in the final stage when Angela Ruch got loose in the pack, but the true ‘Big One’ came with just three laps remaining when contact between Johnny Sauter and Ben Rhodes sent the latter driver around at the head of the field.

The incident eliminated or damaged nearly every driver in the front pack at the time of the caution, collecting competitors like Rhodes, Sauter, Gilliland, Christian Eckes, Stewart Friesen, Tanner Gray and Riley Herbst.

It also set Enfinger up for his eventual run to glory. He dodged the wreck on the high lane and went on to secure a playoff-clinching win to open the year.

Natalie Decker updates the Truck Series record books

Natalie Decker spent most of 2019 listening to criticism amid a host of crashes and difficulties.

She opened 2020 with a trip to the record books.

Decker played the pack racing game to perfection on Friday, dodging the late crash and pushing the leaders en route to a fifth-place run at night’s end. Not only was it her best-career finish – it also marked a new record result for a female in NASCAR’s third tour.

“It definitely was a rough year,” Decker said of 2019. “You know, to be able to come up to Daytona and get this good finish, you know, it makes me proud and it makes me excited to go to the next one in Vegas.”

The Wisconsinite’s run topped the previous female finishing record of sixth, which Jennifer Jo Cobb had managed in 2011.

Cobb, who had failed to qualify for the same race earlier in the day, took to Twitter to acknowledge and congratulate Decker on her run.

Other Notes

  • When Enfinger and Anderson nearly crashed coming to the line, they risked giving the victory to a surprise in Codie Rohrbaugh. “When we were halfway down off of (Turn) 4 I thought we (were) going to have it,” he said. “But just didn’t work out.”
  • Derek Kraus and Bill McAnally Racing got the 2020 season off the a solid start, bringing home a fourth-place result after Kraus overtook Decker in the run to the checkered flag.
  • Early in the race, it appeared Riley Herbst would be someone to contend with. He led multiple laps and claimed the first stage before suffering heavy damage in one of the race’s three big crashes.
  • Austin Hill drove a strong race and positioned himself to defend his 2019 Daytona win. But the Hattori Racing driver found himself on the slower outside lane for the final restart and couldn’t recover, fading from second to sixth. “We just needed better trucks on the outside lane,” he said.
  • In his fourth Truck Series start, 46-year-old Canadian Jason White survived the madness to score his first top-10 in 10th. He did so despite completing just four laps between practice and qualifying in the build-up to the race.
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Aaron Bearden Featured NASCAR Truck Series