MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Grant Enfinger and CR7 Motorsports will have West Virginia University Athletics and Grant County Mulch as sponsors in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Richmond Raceway Friday night.
Last year, the same sponsors teamed up with Enfinger for the same race where he finished 13th.
Recently, Enfinger and the number 9 CSR Motorsports Chevrolet did some burnouts at Hope Coliseum before taking a ceremonial ride down High Street to show the race truck off.
“It’s cool; it’s a small-town atmosphere, but man I feel like the whole state wears that pride and badge of honor, and it’s very cool to be involved with it,” Enfinger said.
The video posted at the WVU Sports Facebook page shows Enfinger navigating High Street in Morgantown with other traffic before stopping at the courthouse for photos.
“We had a little help from the West Virginia State Police too, and they let us drive the truck downtown,” Enfinger said. “It was a pretty cool experience that not everybody gets to do.”
Enfinger finished the race 13th last and won the race in 2020, and he’s going into this event on a high note. Back in July, Enfinger drove the number 9 Chevy to a win at Lime Rock, considered the short track of road courses among drivers.
“It’s always been one of my favorite tracks, so hopefully we can have a good run this weekend,” Enfinger said. “Hopefully we can get a lot of WVU followers out to the race track and tuning in on FS 1 Friday night.”
The 250-lap race equals about 187 miles and will be run in three stages—two 70-lap stints and a final 110-lap stint for the win. Qualifying speeds are typically around 115 to 118 miles per hour, and race speeds will run anywhere from 90 to 100 miles per hour.
“It is a true short track with super worn-out asphalt, so tires are a premium,” Enfinger said. “I would say tires are more important at this race than any other race on our schedule.”
Tire strategy will be very important in this race due to track conditions and tire wear. The fuel window for the Craftsman Trucks can be as much as 110 laps, while tires will start to fall off significantly in the 50 to 65 lap range.
“The tires are so important,” Enfinger said. “If you put new tires on and you don’t have any left and a caution comes out, you’re a sitting duck.”
Trucks will practice at 1 p.m. Friday, and qualifying is set to begin at 2:05 p.m. (FS2). The green flag drops for the race at 7:30 p.m. Friday and will air on FS1.