MOBILE, AL :: A few months removed from finishing second in the ARCA Racing Series championship standings, Grant Enfinger has returned home to the Gulf Coast to a chase a victory in the Snowball Derby that he says would be a matter of pride more than anything else.

Enfinger posted a league leading six wins in ARCA competition but was ultimately beat for the title by Mason Mitchell, who won only once but scored 18 top-10s in 20 starts. Enfinger failed to finish the final two races of the season at Kentucky and Kansas but says a total of five DNFs derailed his championship bid more than the two at the end of the year.

“I don’t narrow it down to those two races,” Enfinger told Race22.com on Tuesday at an ARCA press conference near his hometown in Mobile. “I do think our performance spoke volumes about GMS Racing and everything we were able to do with both Team BCR and GMS Racing last year.

“It was just a reminder that I was blessed with really good cars and had some great opportunities. It just wasn’t meant to be for the championship.”

The 29-year-old has now turned his attention to the Snowball Derby where he is the defending runner-up, having posted top-10s in five of his nine career starts. Enfinger has always made the most of his equipment in Super Late Model competition, avoiding many of the big crashes and believes his experience in ARCA and the NASCAR Truck Series has paid off in recent attempts.

“I don’t know that we’ve always missed the big wrecks but honestly, we’ve been fortunate on that — and knock on wood — hopefully that will continue,” Enfinger said. “I feel like I’ve had an advantage here lately because I have a lot of experience running longer distance races with pit stops. Some of the Late Model guys do too but many of them don’t.

“I’ve run 20-plus races that are longer distance events and now, even though I see the Snowball Derby as a big deal, this is just another race to me. I don’t feel the butterflies and that allows me to just get down to business.”

Enfinger, who is currently working as an engineer for GMS, doesn’t have any additional races planned after the Snowball Derby. Despite all his success in ARCA last season, Enfinger is still looking for the partners and funding required to go racing and the nervousness is starting to settle in.

“I’m way past the worried stage to be honest, considering that I don’t have the first race lined up for next year,” Enfinger said. “My number one goal is to get something lined up so we can race for GMS. I like working with those guys and there a lot of parts and pieces that go into making something like this happen.

“We have a couple of months until Daytona and we’re going to keep working to make something happen.”

In recent years, Erik Jones, Chase Elliott and Johanna Long have each used victories in the Snowball Derby as a springboard towards NASCAR. Enfinger does not believe that a victory next weekend will necessarily have the same results for him so he is simply treating the Derby as a matter of pride.

He wants to win this race for his new Super Late Model partners at Cooks Racing, his sponsors and the family and friends that have supported him over the years.

“Maybe it will attract someone who can help us get back in ARCA or NASCAR but it’s all about pride,” Enfinger said. “The No. 1 reason I’m running this race is my own selfish pride. I want to win that race for my hometown, for Triple K Construction and Gary Crooks Racing and everyone involved here.

“This is a pride thing more than a business thing.”