Grant Enfinger wins wild NASCAR Truck Series playoff opener

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Grant Enfinger grabbed the lead with four fresh tires after a wild overtime restart and pulled away to win the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series playoff opener Friday night at Indianapolis Raceway Park.

Restarting second on the inside row, Enfinger squeezed the No. 23 GMS Racing Chevrolet past Zane Smith for the lead after Smith battled with John Hunter Nemechek for the top spot.

Enfinger raced to his seventh series victory and first since 2020. He secured a place in the Round of 8 with the victory.

“We’ve just been off a little bit as an organization,” Enfinger said. “We’ve been working so hard because we’ve been sucking. It hurts to say it, but we’ve had a terrible season to this point. But we had a great Chevrolet all day.”

Ben Rhodes ended up second in a Toyota, 0.477 seconds back on the 0.686-mile oval that hosted the series for the first time since 2011.

Smith was third, followed by Stewart Friesen and Corey Heim.

Nemechek was 10th after leading a race-high 76 laps. He sent the race to overtime when he spun leader Taylor Gray in Turn 3 on Lap 199 of the scheduled 200.

“Sometimes you’re the bug and sometimes you’re the windshield, and tonight we were the bug,” Nemechek said. “I made a mistake early on and spun myself, and we had a restart there at the end on old tires.”