Ankrum Notches First Top-Five of ’26 in Nashville

Venue: Nashville Superspeedway

FINISH: 5th

Start: 17th

NCTS Point Standings Position: 8th

Another rain filled race day for the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series (NCTS) forced a series of delays for Tyler Ankrum and the No. 18 Ullico Chevrolet to start the day. Due to wet weather conditions once again, qualifying was cancelled and the lineup for the 150-lap event was set by the NASCAR’s metric system which relegated Ankrum to a 17th-place starting position. The young driver started the run out battling super tight handling conditions on his race truck and could not make any progress moving forward through the field which ultimately led him to a 20th-place Stage One finish. Crew chief Mark Hillman called the driver of the No. 18 down pit road for a few adjustments, four fresh tires and a top off of Sunoco race fuel to restart the second stage 18th in line.

As the green flag fell, the yellow flag was two steps behind for a spin on the restart. The young driver cleared the chaos and reset for the next restart. The field started to get dicey and a gaggle of cautions arose, one after another trying to get through Stage Two. The San Bernardino, Calif. native reported to his team that he was still fighting tight conditions and under caution with 20 laps to go in the stage, Hillman (Mark, crew chief) made the choice to bring the No. 18 down pit road for four Goodyear tires, fuel and one round out of the right rear. Finally the green flag was underway and stayed green to allow Ankrum a 15th-place Stage Two finish. While the majority of the field stayed out on that final caution, the No. 18 strategy played in favor and Ankrum stayed out under the stage break to restart the final laps up front in third.

Restarting third on the bottom, Ankrum gave a solid push to competitor Rajah Caruth and continued his charge to the front. He held strong in the top-five as the field continued green until a caution arose on lap 118. This yellow flag allowed the young driver to save fuel and put himself in a good window to where he would not have to visit pit road again for fuel. The driver of the No. 18 Ullico Chevrolet went on to the checkered flag and rallied to his first top-five finish of the 2026 season at Nashville. Tonight’s finish moved Ankrum up in the NCTS driver point standings to eighth heading into Michigan next weekend.

Tyler Ankrum Quote:

“Really solid night by this No.18 group tonight. Crew chief Mark Hillman made a fantastic call to pit near the end of Stage Two there and those cautions really helped us save of fuel so I am super happy with our result tonight. It was been a rough start to the year for us and we have a lot of things that we needed to clean up but these guys work so hard and it is really reassuring to have a solid night tonight like we have needed the past couple weeks.”