And so it has come to this, four drivers – Sheldon Creed, Grant Enfinger, Brett Moffitt and Zane Smith – will race for the 2020 NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series championship in Friday’s Lucas Oil 150 (8 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at the one-mile Phoenix Raceway.
Three first-time championship contenders – Creed, Enfinger and Smith; three GMS Racing teammates – Creed, Moffitt and Smith – will race for the season trophy capping a competitive season schedule and particularly thrilling Playoff run.
Regular-season champion Austin Hill, a two-race winner, was stunningly eliminated last week after his Toyota suffered a mechanical problem in the Martinsville Speedway race, but four other highly-motivated race winners will decide this season’s trophy hoist.
Creed, a four-race winner in the No. 2 GMS Racing Chevrolet, will be making his Championship 4 debut. The 23-year old Californian has earned four top-10 finishes in the six Playoff races going to Phoenix, including a victory at Texas and runner-up finishes at Las Vegas and Kansas. He has led laps in four of the six races and led the most laps in three of them (Vegas, Kansas, Texas and Martinsville)
Enfinger, also a four-race winner in the No. 98 ThorSport Racing Ford, is also in the Championship 4 for the first time in his career. He won the regular-season championship last year, but did not advance to the trophy race. This year, the 35-year old Alabama native arrives in Phoenix as the most recent winner – surviving a rough-and-tumble final few laps at Martinsville last week for his automatic ticket in. His best showing at Phoenix is fourth-place in 2018. He has a pair of top-five finishes in three starts at the track, but has only led laps there one time (10 laps in 2018).
Moffitt, driver of the No. 23 GMS Racing Chevrolet, finally snapped a season of oh-so close calls with a victory at Kansas three races ago. The 25-year old Iowa native finished runner-up four times but he arrives in Phoenix feeling especially confident. The 2018 Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series champion is the only one among the Championship 4 who has ever hoisted a trophy at the track before, taking the 2018 victory en route to his title. He easily has the most experience at Phoenix with a pair of Truck Series starts, one Xfinity Series start and two NASCAR Cup Series starts.
His 2020 Playoffs have been up-and-down with three top-10 efforts and three finishes of 20th or worse. He crashed out at Martinsville eight laps before the checkered flag running up front.
One of the most inspired Championship 4 appearances comes from the 21-year old Zane Smith, who crashed out at Talladega in the opening-round finale and literally had to wait until the race finished to see if he had retained enough of a points-cushion to move on. He did. And he’s certainly made the most of his second chance
This will be Smith’s Phoenix debut in the Truck Series, although he does have an encouraging fifth-place finish in his only start at the track – an Xfinity Series race in 2019. The driver of the No. 21 GMS Racing Chevrolet has a pair of top-five finishes in the last races (at Texas and Martinsville) – three top-10s in the Playoffs. He led laps at Kansas (37) and Martinsville (20).
Certainly having the GMS Racing teammates Creed, Moffitt and Smith represent three-quarters of the title run may seem intimidating, but the lone driver from another team, Enfinger, isn’t buying into that.
“I don’t know if there’s an advantage or a disadvantage, but we’re gonna go for broke from the time the green flags drop to the time the checkered flag drops and hope that it works out in our favor,” Enfinger said. “We’re gonna not do anything stupid, definitely not intentionally put anybody in a bad spot, but we’re gonna go for broke. That’s where our mindset is. I don’t think it’s necessarily an advantage or a disadvantage going into it like that, but that’s how we feel like we have to play the hand we’re dealt and that’s how we feel like we need to play it.”
Source: Holly Cain | NASCAR Wire Service
