Tyler Ankrum good to the last drop in breaking 130 race NASCAR Trucks drought

It took 130 NASCAR Truck Series race across 130 starts but Tyler Ankrum finally scored his second victory in the division on Friday night in the first half of the revival event at Rockingham Speedway.

Remarkably, Ankrum did it by stretching his fuel tank to 88 laps in a run that saw every other contender near him in the top five all run out of fuel. He led the final 29 laps after a long green flag run forced Corey Heim and Gio Ruggiero to pit road because they hadn’t pit since the second stage.

“We stole one today; I won’t deny that,” said Ankrum, who was 22nd at the second stage break and received a free pass to get back on the lead lap. “Mark (Hillman, crew chief) making the pit call to get our track position back once we got the lucky dog was huge … and then it was all about saving fuel.

“Coming to six to go … I knew we were five (laps) short, so I was hoping I saved enough at that point. Thankfully, I did.”

How did he save fuel?

“I just found something there where I was pretty much lifting 60 percent down the straightaway, and I was able to draft off of (Matt) Crafton and a couple of other guys, and I was able to save that way,” he explained.

“It’s just surreal. I feel like this is pretty much the way it went down at Kentucky (Speedway) in 2019.”

That was his rookie season and the only victory he had until this point. He called the past six years ‘challenging’ and ‘hard’ but credited the sponsors for sticking with him, most of them being with him from the start.

On Lap 109, Ty Majeski spun and crashed into the wall due to contact with Grant Enfinger. This resulted in a red flag to repair the SAFER Barrier.

“I can’t really blame Grant,” Majeski said. “He held me tight, obviously took the air off my right side. Yeah, just embarrassed, honestly. These last three weeks isn’t who I am as a driver. I feel so bad for everybody at ThorSport-(owners) Duke and Rhonda (Thorson) – yeah, I just need to be better.”

The next restart resulted in this big crash and hit involving Tanner Gray, Stewart Friesen and Matt Mills. It began with a bobble from Rajah Caruth.

“Tried to go wide open in qualifying and kissed the wall,” said Friesen. “They did a really good job of putting it back together. It was just as fast in the race as it was in practice. Just trying to bide our time. Saw Rajah get loose and tried to check up as much as I could and got run over.”

He left the track really dejected.

“It is what it is. I’ll tell you, the last two weeks, we’ve had really fast trucks but it really makes me question if all these headaches are even freaking worth it anymore. It’s what I’ve wanted to do my whole life — race at this level. The top two series (Cup and Xfinity) are not in my lifetime so this is what I live and die for. I don’t know, maybe not worth it anymore.”

Was there anything Heim could have done to make it to the finish?

“I thought we were really good all day. I had a really good Tundra TRD Pro,” Heim said. “I felt like if we had the track position we would have been in really good shape from the very start. Just didn’t have a good qualifying effort on my end. It was kind of an uphill battle from there all day.

“I didn’t exactly know what happened there the last 40 laps there, but we pitted, and it seems like some of the other guys didn’t run of fuel. Unfortunate to have that happen.

“Just a weird deal in that last stage … but [I] have to be better on my part as far as qualifying better and having the track position from the beginning.“We made our bed at the beginning of that last stage; we didn’t know if we were going to be battling the sunset and darkness or fuel [mileage]. But I thought we had the best truck.”

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