17-year-old Kaz Grala will make his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) debut this Saturday at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway for GMS Racing, CATCHFENCE.com has confirmed.
Grala, the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East veteran will drive the No. 33 Chevrolet Silverado in Saturday’s Alpha Energy Solutions 250, the third race of the Truck Series season.
2015 ARCA Racing Series champion Grant Enfinger started off the season driving the No. 33 GMS Racing Chevrolet at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway and Atlanta (Ga.) Motor Speedway, but will shift to a coaching type role for Grala this weekend. Enfinger, the Fairhope, Alabama native currently sits ninth in series points after producing a season-best fifth place run at Atlanta last month.
“I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself, but I have a really great GMS Racing team behind me,” said Grala this past weekend at Greenville-Pickens (S.C.) Speedway. “They are helping me get prepared and helping me feel pretty comfortable getting into the weekend. I will be in the 33 truck. I’ll have Grant Enfinger helping me the whole time kinda coaching me, telling me what I’m doing right, what I’m doing wrong. That will be huge and important to me.”
Knowing Enfinger has done well in the first two races of the season, including sitting on the pole for the season-opening race at Daytona, Grala knows there is pressure to perform, but believes he’ll have a truck worthy of allowing him to showcase his talent and the opportunity to produce similar results.
“The 33 truck has run very well so far this year, so I have no doubt that we’ll unload pretty close. They are going to make my job pretty easy.”
While Martinsville is often considered a very technical track for any rookie driver, Grala also realizes when it comes to short track racing, luck can play a huge factor in the outcome of the race.
A scenario the avid Late Model racer who has prior experience at Martinsville is more than ready to handle Saturday afternoon.
“Martinsville is kinda one way, kinda the other,” added Grala who finished ninth at Greenville Pickens driving for truck series regular Ben Kennedy. “In a way you can say yeah, it’s a very difficult track to drive, probably one of the more technical tracks on the schedule. But, at the same time, there’s a lot out of your control. All you can really do at Martinsville is put yourself in the best position you possibly can. Still, as we’ve seen before anything can and will happen. Part of that is a little bit of luck and trust in the other competitors.
“I’m just going to do my best to qualify the best I can, run as well as I can. If we go down, at least we’ll go down with a fight.”
Past Martinsville Grala’s partial truck schedule is not finalized, but he says he’ll be back in a GMS truck for more races in 2016.
“We don’t have a number set, but it will definitely be more than this one,” he said. “There will be more (races) this year.”
The Westborough, Massachusetts native says he does have a sponsor for his truck series debut with an announcement expected as early as Monday.
Neither Grant Enfinger nor his representatives immediately returned a request for comment.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
