Tyler Ankrum tallied his eight top-10 finish of the season and his second-best result at Talladega Superspeedway with a 10th-place finish on Saturday afternoon. The driver of the No. 16 LiUNA! Toyota Tundra TRD Pro completed the best weekend for HRE this season as he joined teammate Chase Purdy inside the top-10. Ankrum scored points in both stages to compile 33 points, which was tied for sixth-most of all drivers in the field.
The Californian took the green flag in 20th position and patiently worked the bottom lane in the opening 20-lap stage to his advantage. As the field began to fall into single-file formation, Ankrum moved to 11th position on lap 10 and grabbed the 10th position when the race’s first caution flew on lap 19. The yellow flag would end the stage on lap 20 and allowed him to hit pit road for fuel only.
He restarted the second stage in seventh position on lap 27 before two more caution flags significantly slowed the pace. After only three laps of the stage were contested under green, Ankrum grabbed an additional four points by running in seventh position at the completion of lap 40. Crew chief Scott Zipadelli brought Ankrum back to pit road for two right side tires, fuel, and a minor wedge adjustment under the caution.
Ankrum restarted 19th on lap 46 and put his patience to good use in the second half of the event. He calmly ran outside the top-15 as the lead draft featured bold aggression amongst the top-15 runners. After making a green flag pit stop for two tires on lap 63, the caution flag flew once more and allowed Ankrum to line up 14th for a restart on lap 69. As the laps waned, Ankrum threaded has way to sixth by lap 77 and placed himself firmly in contention inside the top-10 over the final 20 laps. Ankrum lined up ninth for the green-white-checkered restart and climbed as high as sixth before avoided a wreck on the final lap and was scored 10th.
Tyler Ankrum Quote:
“We had a pretty good handling truck. It was a little darty, but we ran up front all day long and inside the top-10 and were running sixth there at the end. Just made a wrong decision to push the 51 (Corey Heim) and he spun. Actually happy to finish at race at Talladega. I can say for once that I want to come back. We’ll have a better speedway truck for the next one.”
HRE PR
