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NASCAR GANDER RV & OUTDOORS TRUCK SERIES: NEXTERA ENERGY 250February 14, 2020Grant EfingerJeff HensleyDavid PepperDaytona Beach, Florida THE MODERATOR: We are joined by members of our race‑winning team, which is the No.98 Champion/Curb Records Ford F150. We have the driver Grant Enfinger, we have ThorSport general manager David Pepper, and we also have the crew chief Jeff Hensley. Q. Grant, after a winless season last year, I know you were a little vocal about it at times, but checked that box really early with the win tonight. How good does it feel to have that monkey off your back? GRANT ENFINGER: You know, it feels good. I think right now it's probably relief more than anything because we did come so close last year, and we were a good enough team to win, we just honestly didn't get the job done, and I feel like that hurt us a little bit going into the playoffs. So now that we were able to do this early, I guess we don't have any excuses. Just very thankful for a great Ford F150 tonight. It's pretty special, the hundredth win for Ford in the Truck Series, 25th anniversary for Dick and Rhonda Thorson, special day for my wife here and I, so just all around just a special race. Almost meant to be, I guess. It almost has to be at these speedways for them to work out, and just thankful. Q. David, he touched on it a little bit. You've been there for so much of the 25 years. The silver trucks this weekend, how special is this for the organization to open the silver anniversary with a win like this? DAVID PEPPER: Well, he touched on it. I mean, I think everybody made a huge point of‑‑ we won both the regular season and the end of the season championships last year, but we only won one race. Over the winter we went to work, and that was the goal, we need to win more races. To do it starting the 25th anniversary, that's kind of story book. Duke and Rhonda and Allison Thorson have spent the last 25 years building this race team to what it is, and this is a very special moment for us to be able to deliver this big a win at this venue, the World Center of Racing. We checked that off the box, and for all time we'll have those silver trucks in Victory Lane. They told me it was bad luck. We did a photo shoot with the trucks here. The track was nice enough to let us do it. It wasn't really bad luck, guys. Q. Grant and Jeff, when you guys were leading earlier, you guys had talked‑‑ you thought you had a good car but not necessarily the best car, and you guys kept on leading. Grant, at one point you said that leading is not easy. What did you guys need more to make it look easy because you guys made it look easy at times. The truck was pretty hooked up. GRANT ENFINGER: Yeah, I would still say we weren't probably the best truck out there, but we were very good pusher and a good leader. We probably weren't a great pusher or a great leader. But from where we were, really with our speedway program, last year we could push really good and we couldn't lead at all. We tried to make stuff better at Talladega and we made it worse. But we finished with a whole truck. Two weeks later we cut everything off. It was a full‑fledged effort for us and the 99 because two of our trucks were really good at Talladega. We pretty much spared no expense, time energy or effort and went straight to work after Talladega, and that's why me and Jeff Hensley and David are sitting here reaping the rewards right now. Q. And then on the last lap, walk me through the entire process of knowing the run is coming, Jordan gets beside you, Jordan said he didn't think he would have made the same choices you would have, but it's Daytona, as well. Give me an idea of that entire process. GRANT ENFINGER: You know, first of all, Ross was pushing me really hard there. I knew he was going to try something, and I knew he had a really good truck, and he's obviously very talented. I saw when he was coming, and I chased him up the hill in 1 and 2, able to hold him off, then go back to the bottom, and I think that's where Jordan got in line with his‑‑ he actually gave it some good shows, and I knew he was holding back a little bit, and when he got to our right rear, Chris just kind of talked me through that, and he was able to stall me out, get all the way up the hill, I was able to follow him, hit him a little bit, stalled him out, and then able to‑‑ the start‑finish line was in the exact place we needed it to be. I don't know if we could have held him off another lap. Q. Grant, two of your three wins in the Truck Series have come on superspeedways. Do you consider superspeedway racing to be your specialty? GRANT ENFINGER: I don't know about my specialty, but I definitely love speedway racing. I definitely love that the Truck Series only goes there twice a year because it is crazy, very stressful. But I do like this kind of racing. I wouldn't call me a specialist with the speedways, but I do like them. I enjoy here and Talladega. But you know, the meat of the season is the mile‑and‑a‑halfs. We had a heck of a mile‑and‑a‑half program last year. We obviously got a little momentum going into Vegas now, so maybe we can make it two in a row. JEFF HENSLEY: Yeah, the pressure is off for a little bit anyway. Q. Grant, with this win you're likely locked into the playoffs, especially considering the playoff field was expanded from eight to ten drivers. How does this change your mindset for the regular season? GRANT ENFINGER: I feel like we can be more aggressive for the next 16 races, and we can also maybe utilize‑‑ we can't test in NASCAR and in the Truck Series, so we can maybe try some things that some other guys can't at this point in the season, which I feel like can help us prepare for the playoffs. You know, I didn't necessarily agree with Hensley's first call at the end of the stage. I wanted the stage points because I guess that's what I've been used to for the last year. But he kind of changed his mindset because we really didn't do good enough last year of putting ourselves in position to win. We had a few opportunities and weren't able to capitalize on it. But I feel like the mentality now is to do a better job of putting ourselves in that position, and it should help our odds in the win column. You know, I'm definitely happy with that call now. I definitely feel like that track position helped us. It helped us control the race at certain points. But it wasn't everything. You know, we still had to have a good truck to get it done, and I really feel like all four of our ThorSport Racing F150s were probably good enough to win. We had the runs when we needed them, and we were able to stay out of the wrecks. Q. But no pressure‑‑ less pressure in the regular season races with this victory? GRANT ENFINGER: I'd say less pressure for the next couple days here. JEFF HENSLEY: Until we get to Vegas, then that'll change. Q. How hard can you slam somebody on the last lap for people to say, okay, it's racing at Daytona for a win? GRANT ENFINGER: You know, that's a good question for sure. I feel like I hit Jordan pretty good but probably really square in the door, just enough to slow his momentum down, and really I was just relying on Chris Lambert for that information on where he was because as soon as he got to my right rear and stalled me out he went straight to the wall, which is what he's supposed to do. I was able to chase him up, slow him down just enough and then get off of him after I had stalled his momentum. I don't know if I could do it again if we tried. Just fortunate enough to work out tonight. Q. Pepper, what was going through your mind when Sauter turned your other truck and about annihilated all the ThorSport trucks in one fell swoop? DAVID PEPPER: I had visions of a couple years ago when on the white flag lap I think we had four of them in the top 5 and we couldn't make one good truck out of what was left about 80 feet later. Yeah, I was having visions. I kind of turned away, and thank goodness when I looked back there was a few of them left, so it worked out good. But yeah, it was definitely nerve‑racking. It always is. When you bring four really good trucks down here, really good drivers and they have an opportunity to win, they're all going to run right there together. That's the plan. We're trying to help each other. You know that can happen, and yeah, it's exceptionally nerve‑racking. But thank goodness finally we weren't all taken out in it and were able to get one of these F150s to Victory Lane. Q. Did you realize that you had won when you took the checkered flag or was it as close for you as it looked for everybody else? GRANT ENFINGER: I thought I had won, and then Chris said, hey, yeah, we beat him to the line, so that was all I knew, and that was good enough for me at that point. JEFF HENSLEY: I didn't know we had won. I had my eyes closed coming off of 4 to the start‑finish line. Q. Grant, there was a time there late in the race when you got shuffled out of the front pack and had to go to the back. How did you maneuver in that high‑speed chess game to get back up to the front to the lead? GRANT ENFINGER: Yeah, really, I felt like I in a sense gave our chances of the race away at that point. I was teeter‑tottering on trying to block both lanes, then I saw Ben coming really fast, and I went up too late to block him. And then I come back down and Stewart was there, so got caught in the sucker hole and went back to 10th, 12th, 14th, somewhere in there, and to be honest with you, I felt like there was going to be a wreck in there, so I was able to position myself on the bottom. Just had a gut feeling some bad stuff was going to happen, and then the laps kept clicking off, and we should have wrecked a few times. There was some bad stuff going on, but everybody was able to keep it under control, and then it got down to five to go and then four to go, and I'm like, can't sit on the bottom forever, and then able to shuffle our way to the outside. I really can't remember who was pushing us at that time, maybe the 51 truck, but had some big runs coming, and able to push ourselves into the lead with some really good momentum about the same time that the big wreck happened there in Turns 1 and 2. You just really never know when or where the wreck is going to happen. Like I said, I had a gut feeling it was going to happen earlier than it did, so that's why I did what I did, but we had the good track position coming out of the pits and the cautions fell where we needed them to, so I was very disappointed in myself when I fell back as far as we did, and it worked out. Q. Grant, we saw that the trucks tonight were a little, I would say, more darty than usual. Some guys would come up off the bottom. Did you feel anything different in the stability of the trucks compared to in previous races, or was that an inexperience level type deal with other drivers? How did you feel about your truck? GRANT ENFINGER: No, I mean, they're always a handful here in the pack, and it just is what it is here. I didn't really notice anything different as far as that goes. There was a couple guys that we were around, I know one of them had some damage. Some of them didn't. So I don't know if it was a handling deal or what. But yeah, there was definitely certain trucks that were fighting handling. Maybe that was more so than normal, but our truck and just as a general rule, they're always a handful, and they were again tonight. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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