Grant Enfinger and the Allgaier Motorsports team came into Pocono Raceway for the second time this season with the hope of improving on their 3rd place finish here in June. With a good car, an eighth place starting spot for the Pennsylvania ARCA 125, and alot of confidence, the team was poised to do just that.

After rain washed out the race on Saturday, The ARCA Series presented by Menards field took the green flag around 10:15 Sunday morning for the 50 lap “speedway sprint”. Enfinger moved from 8th to 5th before the field reached turn one and looked to move up even farther. However, the field was slowed by a lap 2 caution. Crew chief Kelly Kovski called Enfinger to pitroad on lap 12 for right side tires and fuel while the field was still under caution from the lap 2 wreck. Enfinger would take the green flag on lap 13 from the 22nd position and by lap 16 had already moved the #36 Dodge up to the 14th spot. Lap 21 would find Enfinger in 11th. However, he would tell his crew that the nose of the car was sliding in turn 3 and on lap 23 would say that he was “tight in the center of turn 3″. A lap 26 caution would give Enfinger [now in 10th] and the Allgaier Motorsports crew the opportuninty to work on the car one more time. Enfinger would come to a sliding halt just inside the front of his pit box, forcing his crew to adjust their position for the stop. The crew wasn’t bothered much by Enfinger missing his mark and turned in an excellent stop. However, they were forced to push the car back in order for Enfinger to exit his pit stall as he was blocked in by the car pitting in front of him. The delay in exiting would only cost Enfinger 2 spots and he would restart in the 12th position. Lap 39 would find Enfinger up to 7th place and on the very next lap he would pass 2 more cars to move into 5th place on lap 40. Enfinger would run down 4th place Tom Hessert over the next several laps but would be unable to pass him and would end up taking the checkered flag in 5th.

In his post race comments, Enfinger would praise his crew and expressed a little frustration with himself. “The crew did a great job this weekend. Kelly [Kovski] and the guys gave me a great car today. The car got a little tight towards the middle of the race so we came in for a 2nd pitstop to adjust on it. I’ve been working on getting into my pitstall a little better and I guess I came in a little to hot. I slid the car past my marks in the pitstall and after the crew gave me an excellent stop, we were blocked in. So, we had to back the car up in order to get out of the stall and it ended up costing us a couple spots. That one was on me and feel terrible about it. We may not of had a car that would have won the race today, but we were definitely good enough to run 2nd or 3rd. Those two spots I lost us on pitroad may have cost us that 2nd or 3rd place finish. I’ll move on and learn from this and do a better job next time. I can’t thank these guys enough for all their hard work and support. I’m hearing we moved up another spot in the point standings so overall, it was a good day.”

Enfinger was correct with what he was hearing. The Allgaier Motorsports driver moved from third to second in the point standings with the 5th place finish. Enfinger has been steadily climbing the ladder in the points standings of late with 3 top five finishes in his last 4 starts. Enfinger is now 15 points ahead of 3rd place Frank Kimmel and 20 points ahead of 4th place Chris Buescher. Enfinger now sits second in the season point standings in just his first full season in the ARCA Series.

The season and career statistics for Grant Enfinger in the ARCA Series continues to impress. For the season Enfinger has only finished outside the top 10 twice with a worst finish of 14th in thirteen starts. For his career, Enfinger has 31 starts in the series with seven top 3, twelve top 5, and twenty one top 10 finishes.

The team’s next race is in two weeks at the 1 mile dirt track at the Illinois State Fair Grounds, which also happens to be in the team’s hometown of Springfield, Illinois. It will be Enfinger’s first career start on dirt and the Fairhope, Alabama native is looking forward to the challenge. ” This season has had several firsts for me. Its just going to be another new experience. I’m looking forward to the challenge.”