Tyler Ankrum celebrates victory in the K&N Pro Series East King Cadillac GMC Throwback 100 Saturday at Thompson Speedway
THOMPSON – It’s a long trip from Tyler Ankrum’s hometown of San Bernardino, Calif. to Thompson Speedway.
Saturday at Thompson Speedway the 17-year old might have just felt like he was coming from California to the front of the field at Thompson.
Ankrum came from the rear of the 13-car field to win the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East King Cadillac GMC Throwback 100 at Thompson Speedway.
Dillon Bassett of Winston-Salem, N.C was second and Tyler Dippel of Wallkill, N.Y. third.
Ankrum won the pole in qualifying for the event, but was penalized after qualifying for an issue with his car and was forced to start from the rear.
“It was a little frustrating being sent to the back like that for something that was so minor,” Ankrum said. “… It was unfortunate. … Aweomse night. Not too many times you can come from the back of the field like that and win a race.”
Ankrum had worked his way up to second by the time the first caution of the race flew on lap 66.
“We had an awesome car,” Ankrum said. “Fanatstic car. I couldn’t have asked for a better car. The thing, from the start of the race, was on rails. About halfway through the race we had gotten to fourth of fifth and I thought to myself: ‘There’s no stopping us.” Awesome car, awesome race. We raced really hard. I just want to thank all of my competitors. They all raced me really hard but they raced me clean.”
Spencer Davis, who started on the pole, led every lap up to the first caution. Ankrum got shuffled back to fourth on a lap 74 restart scrum. On lap 76 Bassett went by Davis for the lead. Ankrum clawed his way back to second and was on Bassett’s bumper by lap 90. On lap 94 Ankrum went by Bassett for the lead and never trailed again.
13 car field for a major touring division? They should reimburse the fans part of the pricy admission $
Doesn’t seem like much of MAJOR touring division. This division is always WAY over hyped.
I can’t believe they can only find 13 kids with Dad’s rich enough to race in that series. Seriously though that’s a pretty sad state. Go back to the early to mid 90,s. That was a series. Of course that was before NASCAR improved it.
NASCAR screwed up when they stopped allowing cup teams to field K&N cars for their development drivers, and now it shows. The only time you see a full field is when they have a combined east west race. Plus as someone commented the series is way over hyped, and not that fun to watch.
K&N series is just an extra cost Bandalero division.. Little rich kids, boring racing, spec cars, spec bodies, spec motors.. the PERFECT time to hit the concession stands, and get food, or walk the pits, and look at REAL racecars…. #Boring #Nascar #Youthmovement
Hey NASCAR, how about you do us a solid and run this garbage AFTER the mod race at Loudon in September.
The big mistake was NASCAR raising their sanction fees without really raising the purses for the regional series in the early 2000’s. Made it not viable for tracks like Lee, Beech Ridge, Thunder Road, Star, Seekonk, Waterford, and Holland keep bringing back the old Busch North Series. Which led to the regional teams leaving and eventually the mess they have now. And the Mod Tour has been pretty much propped up by running 8 races between Thompson and Stafford because of the same reason too. Totally killed off 4 other NASCAR Series years ago because of NASCAR thinking they could make more money at the expense of their local tracks.