By Caleb Whisler, Staff Writer
It was a long hard-fought battle during the first round of the NASCAR Playoffs for Chase Briscoe and Kaz Grala following the fred’s 250 at Talladega Superspeedway, but both drivers shot at winning the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championship has ended.
For Grala, the day started after the first round of qualifying earlier in the day. Grala and his No. 33 GMS Racing team discovered an issue ad resulted in having an engine change. Grala had to start at the rear of the field.
Despite starting at the rear of the field, Grala was able to work his way toward’s the front of the field before the first stage ended at lap 20. Unfortunately, Grala was caught up in an accident coming off the fourth turn as the field was about to take the green-checkered flag. Grala was regulated to a 29th place finish.
“I firmly believe in qualifying that we would be top-three. We would have been up in front of that single-file pack. We wouldn’t have been back there in position to have trouble. You just can’t control those things. My team and Hendrick guys worked really hard to change that motor,” said Grala. “The truck was really fast to come from last to the top-10 for stage one points. I am proud of our efforts and our run. We did everything that we could do. Sometimes luck is just not on your side. Too bad our championship hopes have ended this week, but we got a few more races to dig.”
For Briscoe, the battle lasted until the end of the race to try and be within nine spots of John Hunter Nemechek, the final driver to advance into the next round. Early in the first stage of the race, Briscoe was told by NASCAR that he was smoking. The team took the car straight to the garage and went to work to diagnose the issue.
When the team took the car to the garage, the team from Roush Yates Engine went to work to put Briscoe on the track. The Roush Yates team was able to put Briscoe back on the track within 10 laps. The issue on Briscoe was a pinched o-ring on the valve cover.
Although he did not make the next round, Briscoe is keeping his head up for the remainder of the season.
“This is just the situation we were dealt in the playoffs and you have to go out here and perform. Honestly, if we run better at Loudon this doesn’t happen. The good Lord has a bigger plan and I am not sure what that is. As much as this sucks right now I am still grateful and fortunate to be running race cars for a living. I have to think big picture but it sucks. I really wanted to get Brad his first championship and Austin still has a shot. We still have some races we can win and that is what we want to do.”
Although they are eliminated from the playoffs, they can still finish as high as fifth in the points standings come Homestead-Miami Speedway.