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NASCAR GANDER RV & OUTDOORS TRUCK SERIES: LUCAS OIL 150November 6, 2020Grant EfingerZane SmithAvondale, Arizona THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Grant Enfinger. We'll start off with questions right away. Q. Grant, obviously not ideal without the championship tonight. Overall how would you summarize this season with a career high in victories? GRANT ENFINGER: You know, up and down. Our ability to overcome obstacles and take advantage of a situation I feel like was really good this year. Overall speed, some of the places was down. Honestly, the short tracks and stuff like that, it was way up. Overall just kind of a strange year, up‑and‑down year. Proud of our guys. Very, very disappointed with how tonight went. But just going to try not to hang our head too low because it was an overall a great year. Q. What is your focus on for next season? GRANT ENFINGER: I plan on being back here unless Dick tells me not to. They've been absolutely great to me. The guy is a champion (indiscernible). Everybody has been awesome. Just a crazy year, a strange year. Nothing's finalized, but I do hope to be back here. THE MODERATOR: We are also joined by Zane Smith. We'll continue with questions. Q. Grant, did the traction compound come in at all? We saw the Cup guys really put on a lot more dicing than the truck guys were. Is that just a matter of horsepower? GRANT ENFINGER: Yeah, it's the package here. I think last year same situation, there had been no passing at all. This year because the tires did fall off, you could pass if you were off sequence with somebody. But really if you're on the same sequence, if you're a decent truck, once you get past the first couple corners, it's really, really hard to pass. That's just the motor package, the amount of downforce we have I think. But the tire falloff was a big plus, I feel like. Overall I feel like our traction was really good on the long run, but we struggled firing off. Q. Zane, was there anything you felt like you could have done differently on the last two laps or do you feel like you did what you could do and out of time? ZANE SMITH: I felt like I did everything I could there. Yeah, I don't know what else I could have done differently. Q. Zane, two wins this year, second in points. Overall would you say it was a successful rookie year? ZANE SMITH: Yeah, yeah, it was a good year. But, man, it's a disgusting feeling to finish second in this deal being that close. I get to go do it all again next year, so hopefully we're one spot better. Q. Zane, on the last lap, it looked like you were making a charge at Sheldon in one and two, then looked like you lost your momentum off of turn two. What happened there? Was that ultimately the difference on the last lap? ZANE SMITH: Yeah, I mean, I wasn't close enough to get to his bumper or try to make a pass going through the dogleg. I cut it all the way. Was just hoping for the front end to grab. It just didn't. Q. Zane, overall when you evaluate your rookie season, what was your biggest area of growth? ZANE SMITH: Maintaining my track position. I needed to do a better job with that tonight. I felt like I tried holding on as long as I could. Just wasn't enough. We fought a handful of things. Still at the end regardless just came out one spot short. Q. Grant, did you overdrive the final lap or did someone hit you to put you into the wall going into turn one? Until that point, what did you think your chances were on the final restart? GRANT ENFINGER: I actually got a good restart there coming to the green. Maybe the way everything cycled out, I didn't know what kind of buffer we had behind us. I know we had a little buffer. I was worried about the new tires. Honestly, I was just focused on the 23 truck, beating him going into turn one. The first time by I actually had a pretty good run. One truck slid up in front of us, hurt our run a little bit. When the 2 truck passed us in 3 and 4, I know probably wouldn't stick, but I was just trying to get in there as hard as I could. He just jumped the PJ1, got the wall pretty good. Said a Hail Mary. Just Hail Mary that it wasn't ever going to work. Q. Grant, your thoughts on when the final caution came out, if there wasn't all that chaos, did you think you had what it took to get by most of the field and win it? GRANT ENFINGER: If nobody had taken tires, yeah. We went back and forth. (Indiscernible) wanted me to come in. I wanted to stay out just because we had trouble firing off on new tires all night. My biggest hope was I should stay out and 10 trucks would stay out. That wasn't the case. That's where we got beat. I don't know. We hopefully would have started in front of the 2 truck that last restart if we had taken tires. I don't know. We just weren't great at firing off all night. That's one we might second‑guess a little bit for a while. Overall just a bad ending to a great year. Q. Grant, how did you feel going into the corner when the 51 came up in front of you? Did you feel he was blocking or was it just hard racing? GRANT ENFINGER: I thought he come up on me right to his right rear on the edge. I could have hooked him in the wall, but that wouldn't have done me any good either. He's trying to win the race. I don't blame him at all. I was right there. He was pushing the envelope. If I would have pushed the envelope, it would have wrecked both me and him. At the end of the day I don't know if that helped us. I don't know if that necessarily lost the race. If I could have kept it going through there, it would have been another hundred yards before Creed would have passed us. I don't think we could have held him off. Q. Zane, biggest thing you've learned this rookie season? ZANE SMITH: Not really just one thing. It's just a handful of things. It's been a lot of fun with the group I've had this year. Fortunately I get to go do it all again next year. Like I said, it's not one thing. I've learned a lot this year. It's been fun competing for wins, especially a championship. It's just sickening to come up that short. THE MODERATOR: Thank you both for taking the time to joining us. We will see you next season. ZANE SMITH: Thank you. GRANT ENFINGER: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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