Editor's Note -
Shell's article is from two seperate interviews with Enfinger. The first before his Sunday race, and immediately following it.
Saturday, October 10th.
After placing 9th in qualifying on Saturday for the ARCA RE/MAX American 200 at Rockingham Speedway, 24 year old Grant Enfinger was sipping water from a bottle. I had been intrigued by the fact that in only 5 starts this season, Grant had 3 top 5 finishes, yet word in the pits was he was struggling financially.
Grant invited me back into the hauler so that we could hear each other a little better as there were a few cars still on the track qualifying. Dressed more like a mechanic than a driver, in blue pants and a slightly dirty white tee shirt, the dark haired young member of the new Alabama Gang is a well spoken, courteous, southern gentleman. It was refreshing to say the least to talk with Grant as he has yet to be jaded by the publicity and allure of the racing world.
It is obvious that he is keenly aware of his blessings in life and appears to be well grounded. This writer will be saying a special prayer for young Grant, not only for his safety, but that he finds a sponsor and that he never loses his sense of self and where he came from. Grant Enfinger is an old school race car driver, a fan’s delight, a rare commodity to say the least.
Q: I understand that your crew members are volunteers and friends, is this correct?
A: Well, for the weekend we have some Roush development guys that have come down to help out, they are going over the wall for this race but most of this crew here (nodding his head to a group of men meandering around his hauler) are all my friends.
Q: Do you see yourself as having a style similar to any of the today’s drivers?
A: As far as patience and waiting for the track to come to me, I guess so. I mean if I actually had a car for backup then I could be more aggressive and wouldn’t be as cautious. I think I’m more like Mark Martin in that I go when I have to.
Q: Of all of the drivers, both past and present, what driver do you admire and look up to?
A: “Davey Allison. I mean, I am from Alabama.”
Q: Speaking of Alabama, I was looking at the list of drivers from Alabama, could this be a resurgence of the Alabama Gang in the making and are you close with these drivers?
A: Yeah, that’s sort of neat. Cale Gale is here. Rick Crawford helps me out a lot. Rick’s gear man helped me this weekend, Rick has other parts on the car and I can call him whenever I need anything or whenever I need advice.
Q: In looking at your stats of previous races, much like Tony Stewart, you seem to thrive on a challenge. What do you see as your toughest challenge Grant?
A: Finances. Beasley Allen Law Firm has been my sponsor but it cost a lot of money to field a race car and I need help bad. Just like a set of tires is $1800 and I was lucky enough to have some friends from home buy me a set for this race.
Q: You have help with parts as I understand.
A: Yes. I couldn’t race without my friends and them helping me out and loaners and people giving me things. My friends are as much of the team as I am because I can’t race without them and they come with me to the races. We try to fly them in for the races whenever we can. Some of my friends we couldn’t afford to bring this weekend though.
Q: So you agree that you do feed off of the challenge?
A: I like being behind the eight ball and going all out whenever I can. I like the challenge.
We just really need more sponsors. I’d like to keep racing into next season, but with the economy the way it is and the cost of racing, I wouldn’t be able to do this much racing without my friends and the support of Beasley Allen Law Firm.
Q: Do you regret having to give up your horses Grant? Do you miss them?
A: No. I love racing. I mean yes I miss the horses, but they were more my family’s horses. It would be harder for me to give up racing.
Sunday, October 11th, (After the race)
After showing a 7th place finish at the ARCA/REMAX American 200 at Rockingham, North Carolina, Grant Enfinger still had that boyish, pleasant smile on his face. He had qualified the day before with a time of 25.991 and speed of 138.509 and a starting place of 9th. Grant drives the Beasley Allen Law Firm, No. 83 Ford Fusion powered by Roush-Yates. The following is a transcript of the interview I had with Grant, post race.
Shell: How did you feel today and how was the car?
Grant: I was pretty happy about the way the car was feeling, but the car was feeling a bit uncomfortable. It was a little loose, it was uncomfortable, but it was fast. Then our brake blower stopped working right off the bat, so I don’t know if it was that, or making a little adjustment on that 2nd pit stop, if that hurt us. The car just got a little too tight and started losing the brakes and I was having to use the brakes on the straight away and then get off of them before I got to the corner and just kind of messing up my entrance a little. We weren’t perfect, we were good but we just weren’t perfect.
Shell: A member of your team told me that you were trying to fix a problem while driving without making a pit stop. Could you elaborate on that?
Grant: I was trying to fix the brake blower problem in the car without making a pit stop. The break blower switch is ahm, a little circuit breaker, and when it gets hot it just flips down. I just taped it up. (Going an average of 170 miles an hour¸ with one hand on the wheel, he pulls tape from a vent and ‘just tapes it up’.) But it kept tripping the internal breaker, so ahm, like that didn’t work.
Shell: So do you know about what your top speed was today? Has anybody told you?
Grant: I don’t really know I know it was around 170 in the corners. Well we ended up seventh, I think. The two cars that passed us in the end, they took on tires, which was probably a good call for them. I think we were right there in the middle. I don’t know ahm, that it would’ve done us a whole lot of good with a third or a fourth if we had of taken on tires on that last caution. I don’t think that we would have had enough time to catch the leaders or anything.
We only pitted twice all day today, so we still had a set of tires at the end. If we could’ve gotten a caution with only 20 laps to go, we were gonna put those on and hope for the best.
Shell: That first set that came off looked really worn. Was that a problem for you Grant?
Grant: Yeah, yeah. They said that the right rear was about to go, but still at that time, I mean I was still the fastest car on the track. It’s just this track. I mean Rockingham; it just kills everybody’s tires.
Shell: At one point in the race, I really thought that I was going to be interviewing you in victory lane.
Grant: Well I did too. I was hoping. (Laughing)
Shell: Have you had any sponsors nibbles for next year or do have plans for a schedule for 2010?
Grant: A little bit, a little bit. Nothing real close, I had a little talk this morning but nothing certain. I don’t have a clue about our schedule. Just taking it race by race, waiting for finances so I can race.
Grant Enfinger has a passion for racing that has almost been forgotten. You can see a sparkle in his eyes when he is talking about it, they twinkle when he’s talking about the race. He is like a kid coming down the stairs at Christmas time to find that Santa Claus has left him exactly what he wished for. Both times I talked with Grant this past weekend, one of the things about him that impressed me the most was the lack of the word “I”. Even when he speaks of his finishing place on the track he says, “We finished in 7th”, he didn’t say “I finished”.
Before I left Grant on Sunday afternoon, I asked him if there was anything special that he wanted me to put in the article or to tell his fans. To quote Grant, “Did you tell them about my friends back home? My friends help me out you know. That’s the most important thing of all; just make sure they know I can’t do this without my friends back home.”
Grant, I think you friends already know, and like me, they know a sponsor is will be calling you soon. We will be seeing you again next season.
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