“If you’re in it, you can win it.”
Throughout all of NASCAR’s history, this phrase has been utilized most at the superspeedways of Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway. This is because of the tight pack racing and big crashes that mean teams and drivers with even the slimmest of budgets can (and do) find themselves in position to steal a win and create monumental upsets.
The magic of winning at Talladega, in particular, is one that the Craftsman Truck Series has taken to heart. The last eight years, the series’ annual trip to Sweet Home Alabama have provided the unlikeliest of winners. The contenders you’d expect to find victory lane have been all but shut out since 2016. More importantly, no playoff driver has visited Talladega’s victory lane, as the streak of non-playoff winners at Talladega has been in existence since the series first introduced the playoffs in 2016.
That year, it was Grant Enfinger who went to victory lane. Nowadays, Enfinger is a regular Truck Series competitor with 10 wins to his name. But that Talladega victory was the first of his career, and it came in the midst of a part-time schedule in 2016 that consisted of just eight races across two teams and three trucks.
Driving for the now-defunct GMS Racing, Enfinger qualified second and held off teammate Spencer Gallagher, son of team owner Maury Gallagher, to win his only race in nearly two years. His second career win didn’t come until 2018.
Failing to qualify for the 2016 race was Parker Kligerman, driving part-time for Henderson Motorsports, a role he kept all the way up until this season. Returning to the track in 2017, Kligerman took home a shocking victory.
Not only was it his second career victory (his first coming way back in 2012, also at Talladega), but it was also the first victory for the part-time, underfunded Henderson team, who went on to win one more race with Kligerman in 2022 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
Kligerman and the No. 75 team returned to defend their victory in 2018, but crashed out early and ending their day. It wasn’t the last crash of the day. That came on the final lap when leader Noah Gragson was turned down the backstretch, igniting a big crash that brought out the race-ending caution.
The race winner was Timothy Peters. Again, not exactly and out-of-left-field victor, as Peters had won at Talladega back-to-back in 2014 and 2015. The surprise comes in the fact that…
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