Ankrum Passes Regular Season Test, Makes Truck Chase

By Justin Glenn, SWN Staff Writer

LOUDON, N.H. (Aug. 23, 2026) – For all involved in the Chase cut-line drama during Saturday’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series regular season finale, the Team EJP 175 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway wasn’t pretty.

However, sometimes it’s not necessarily about how a race gets done, but rather who stands tall at the end.

At The Magic Mile, the one who was able to survive and advance was series veteran Tyler Ankrum. 

Ankrum came home 16th after struggling with brake issues in the Team EJP 175, but still secured the 10th and final spot in the 2026 postseason over rivals Stewart Friesen and Jake Garcia. 

“It’s very rare you get to come to a place as fast as [New Hampshire], and you have no rear brakes, and we can’t fix the problems,” said Ankrum. “We’ve had adversities like this throughout the year, and I thought we were done with them. And it came back. Luckily, [Ankrum’s spotter] Eddie D’Hondt gave awesome advice, and told me to turn my left rear brake all the way off, run all the rounds, run all the rounds to the rear, and if that makes it get worse, run them all the way to the front.

“It was able to solve half the problem, and that ended up being enough [to manage].”

Ankrum thought he didn’t have a chance with his own truck problems, and being amid a mid-pack hornet’s nest with single points separating himself and his cut line rivals. Friesen and Garcia had their peaks throughout the afternoon, but had lows of their own in between with strategy and cautions.

“We were back there in 27th [place]. I was like, ‘It’s over.’ I didn’t really think that the race would go that way for us. And I don’t know what the bubble was, but the last couple restarts, for me, it was like, in my head, ‘It’s one point. It’s zero points,’” added Ankrum. “Just like it was in Martinsville [Speedway] last year, for a final four spot. I definitely did not want to come to New Hampshire and perform like that. Not for a Chevrolet, not for LIUNA. Got lucky.

“We did not perform like we belonged in the Chase here today.”

Early in the race Garcia had the strongest truck. He hung around the top 10 and positioned himself for stage points early by finishing ninth. Friesen was just behind in 14th, with Ankrum following suit in 16th.

Garcia’s crew chief Jeriod Prince called for two tires at stage end, which cycled the 21-year-old up to the lead to begin the second segment. 

With that track position, Garcia was able to take the lead from eventual race winner Layne Riggs. He led 14 laps until a lap-77 caution, then following that the ThorSport Racing driver settled into second.

Pit road opened during that yellow flag, with Garcia keeping his hold on the final Chase spot and Friesen back in the teens, while Ankrum made a stop to try and address his brake issues. 

Garcia finished stage two in fifth, with eight points tallied. Friesen netted one in 10th, with Ankrum empty handed.

“We did a good job the first two stages getting stage points. I’m proud of our group,” reflected Garcia afterward. “We brought a really fast truck. We were definitely a fifth-place truck, which is good.”

However, Garcia’s pit stop to end stage two caused a sudden change. The fourth-year driver didn’t pull into his pit box all the way, leaving his right front tire near and over his box. It became a pit road violation, leading to an end-of-the-field penalty. 

“We made the most of [strategy] through the first two stages and in the third stage we made some mistakes. I got stuck in the back and it got hard to come through the field,” Garica said. 

The ball was now in the veteran Friesen’s hands, after the race for the Chase was Garcia’s to lose for a while and Ankrum remained a non-factor due to brakes. To begin the final stage, the 43-year-old’s team took a page out of Garcia’s playbook and took two tires, cycling the No. 52 to the lead.

Friesen quickly lost the lead to Riggs, but the pit call gave him the track position late in the race to seemingly capitalize inside the top five. Inside the final 50 laps, Garcia and Ankrum were 27th and 29th.

A caution with 45 laps to go waved, however, and in 12 laps Garica gained 11 positions to 16th, putting himself back in position to pounce. 

Under three points separated the trio with 18 remaining. Friesen was still atop the leaderboard holding the final spot, Garcia was in 15th but had the speed to make passes, while Ankrum limped in 26th. 

What changed everything again was a caution with six laps to go for a vicious Gavan Boschele crash, after the rookie lost brakes entering the corner and pounded the wall.

That sent the race into the uncharted waters of overtime and let Ankrum make up points by staying out on older tires. A Gio Ruggerio spin in front of the field was a gift to Garcia and Ankrum, as it allowed a second restart.

By the time of the Ruggiero caution, Friesen was fifth, Garcia was 10th and Ankrum sat in 13th, the closest all three had been to one another since the beginning of the race. 

Due to the circumstances of gaining track position with the late cautions, Ankrum being able to get up front allowed for his pre-race points advantage to be put to use. After Richmond, he was 20 points above the cut line. That faded as he ran worse throughout the afternoon.

But once he shuffled up front, it flexed its muscle and gave him an 11-point advantage with two laps to go. 

“We got close there,” Garcia later lamented. “Then I guess when those cautions started coming out [Ankrum] gained some ground and we didn’t have much of a shot at the end.”

The strong roll of the dice from Friesen and Garcia’s teams didn’t suffice despite good races. It gave Ankrum his fifth Truck Series postseason appearance in eight seasons. 

“It was what it was. Proud of the Halmar team. We just didn’t bring enough speed all year,” said Friesen. “We battled today, [crew chief] Bruce Cook made a good call to get two tires and up in the front we got the balance pretty close and found a lane I could work with.

“It’s a bummer, we’re definitely a top 10 team. We just had some misfortune at Richmond last week and some other times throughout the season. It is what it is, we’ll just go back to work and keep building this team up and get better and better, I promise you that,” Friesen said. “Proud of that fight and all our guys at HFR. We’ll go back to work and finish the year as strong as we can and bring better stuff for next year.”

While bittersweet for those who missed out, that is the art of the Chase format. It rewarded the regular season of Ankrum, as the 25-year-old leaned on his Richmond 11th-place finish and points buffer to secure him a spot in the playoffs. 

Ankrum’s metric mirrored both of his cut line competitors. The only difference was his average finishing position being one spot better in 16th than Friesen and Garcia, who were 17th. 

McAnally-Hilgemann Racing will now have three weeks to prepare for the Chase postseason opener at Bristol Motor Speedway. Ankrum enters as the 10th seed, 70 points behind leader Layne Riggs. He will join teammates Christian Eckes and Daniel Hemric as championship hopefuls.

In six career starts at ‘The Last Great Colosseum,’ the San Bernardino, Calif., native has four top 10s and a 2025 career best of fourth. In April he drove from 20th place to finish 13th. 

No matter how it was done, at the end Ankrum made it officially into the Chase. Now, it’s about maximizing points this fall to have a shot at deep title contention. 

“[The postseason berth] will help in a couple hours when I can move on past this,” said Ankrum. “We can talk and go to the shop and improve, go race for a championship.”

Coverage of the UNOH 200 presented by Ohio Logistics from Bristol is slated for Thursday, Sept. 17 at 8 p.m. ET on FS1, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.