LONG POND, PA.: Tyler Ankrum overcame a speeding penalty at the end of Stage 1 to score his second top-five finish of the season in Saturday afternoon’s CRC Brakleen 150 at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway.
Ankrum’s second best finish of the season was obviously a boost for his GMS Racing team after a sour 23rd-place finish last weekend at Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway, but the finish did little to help Ankrum’s chances of competing in the post-season Playoffs.
Ankrum has only pushed out an average finish of 28th in the opening five races of the season, and while that statistic has improved dramatically over the last eight races, Ankrum is likely in a must-win situation to propel his Charles Denike-led team into the Playoffs starting at World Wide Technology Raceway in August.
While there is work to do, Ankrum was satisfied with his fourth top-10 of the year.
“We had a good handling truck, it seemed like we get down the straightaway and everyone would motor away,” said Ankrum. “We gotta a little bit work to do. After the weekend at Nashville, this is a really good bounce back. We gained a lot of good points today, so I’m pretty happy with that.”
In the closing laps of the race, Ankrum was being chased by Austin Hill and knowing that every point is critical in his race to a Playoff spot, the 20-year-old’s tactics to keep him at bay worked.
“I was just really lucky,” Ankrum admitted. “I was just blocking. You could not pass anyone on the bottom. (Just) got really lucky. I was just trying to hold him off and we did.”
With a little momentum on his side, Ankrum heads into two unknown territories of Knoxville Raceway and Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International – the final two races of the season as an opportunity to vault himself into his third Playoff run.
“Just gonna see if we can build (on this) at Knoxville and Watkins Glen.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
