Rain Puts Ankrum On Texas Truck Series Pole

Tyler Ankrum (Nigel Kinrade/NKP photo)

FORT WORTH, Texas – Mother Nature reared her ugly head to kick off the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series visit to Texas Motor Speedway on Friday.

Persistent rainfall throughout the morning and early afternoon forced the cancellation of Truck Series practice and qualifying at the 1.5-mile quad-oval, setting the lineup according to the NASCAR Rule Book.

By virtue of NASCAR’s performance metric formula – weighting 70 percent of the total on previous race finish and 30 percent on the current owner point standing – McAnally-Hilgemann Racing’s Tyler Ankrum starts from the pole in the SpeedyCash.com 250.

Ankrum’s metric score of 1.6 led the 32-truck field. He’s coming off a win in the Truck Series’ most recent event at Rockingham (N.C.) Speedway on April 19.

Daniel Hemric, a teammate to Ankrum at MHR, will share the front row of the grid. Both Ankrum and Hemric are seeking their second Truck Series wins of the season.

ThorSport Racing’s Jake Garcia and TRICON Garage’s Corey Heim start third and fourth, respectively, with CR7 Motorsports’ Grant Enfinger making it three Chevrolets in the top five starting spots.

Lining up sixth through 10th are Kaden Honeycutt, Rajah Caruth, Layne Riggs, Chandler Smith, and Jack Wood.

Notables starting deeper in the field include Connor Mosack (12th), Xfinity Series regulars Nick Sanchez (13th) and Brandon Jones (15th), Cup Series driver Carson Hocevar (19th), and past Truck Series champions Matt Crafton (22nd), Ty Majeski (24th), and Ben Rhodes (28th).

With only 32 drivers in attendance in the Lone Star State, no one failed to make the field for the eighth race of the Truck Series season.

Broadcast coverage of the SpeedyCash.com 250 from Texas is slated for 8 p.m. ET, live on FS1, the NASCAR Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.

Kyle Busch won last year’s running of the event. Busch is not entered this year for the Texas Truck Series race.