Tyler Ankrum

Ankrum comes off a bit of a lackluster season with just six Top-10 finishes and a subpar 17th-place finish in the final driver standings. The young driver will look to rediscover some of the swagger he showed three-to-four seasons ago in 2024. Ankrum moves from the No. 16 Hattori Racing Enterprises Toyota and into the No. 18 Chevrolet truck of McAnally-Hilgemann. This is the same truck that Jake Garcia piloted last season to nine Top-10 finishes and a respectable 13th-place showing in the driver points. Ankrum has race winning and Top-10 driver potential as he showed in the 2019 and 2020 campaigns. The youngster will be paired with Mark Hillman at crew chief and the two will look to keep this team elevated and to boost Ankrum's performance to its former competitiveness. Having championship contender, Christian Eckes, for a teammate will certainly help in the feedback loop.

Ankrum's development had sort of stalled out the last couple seasons. That much-anticipated follow up win to his rookie season victory still hasn't materialized. In fact, statistically, Ankrum has flat lined since that strong rookie campaign in 2019. He returns to Hattori's strong No. 16 truck in 2023, but this season he'll get a crew chief change. Ankrum will now be partnered with longtime veteran Doug Randolph. Randolph has close to 600 starts of experience as a crew chief combined between NASCAR's top three touring series. He also has seven-career wins in the truck series and a runner-up finish in the points with Tyler Reddick in 2015. His experience should hopefully push Ankrum up to the next level of performance.

Up-and-coming youngster Ankrum gets a team change this season. The 20-year-old driver seemed to stall in his development last season in the GMS Racing camp. Ankrum nabbed just five Top-10 finishes and slid all the way back to 15th-place in the driver points. He now moves to a bit smaller team, but are proven performers in recent seasons. Austin Hill piloted this truck to two wins and 15 Top-10 finishes in 2021. Ankrum will get that experience and know-how for the upcoming campaign. He'll be paired with proven winner, Scott Zipadelli, at crew chief and the two should prove to be a good combination. Ankrum doesn't likely have multiple win seasons in his immediate future, but he should be very competitive and get his career back on track this season.

Ankrum returns for another season of racing behind the wheel of the GMS No. 26 Chevrolet. The young driver posted modestly improved marks in 2020 with three Top-5 and 10 Top-10 finishes, but seemingly some ways apart from challenging for wins. After 45 starts in this division of NASCAR, the expectations will grow for Ankrum in 2021. To this point his strengths really seem to be short track and intermediate oval racing. Those have been the best venues for him up until now. Ankrum will have a new crew chief in the upcoming season in Charles Denike. Denike guided both Chase Elliott and Sam Mayer to victories last season in just his first full season of crew chief in this division of NASCAR. It will be expected that he and Ankrum take some substantial steps forward in the upcoming campaign.

One of the brightest rising stars to race in the truck series this season will be Ankrum. The 18-year-old prospect had a very successful rookie run in this division of NASCAR last year. He only started 20 of the 23 events due to age restrictions, but put up impressive numbers in this near-full schedule with DGR-Crosley Racing. Ankrum snagged his first-career win at Kentucky Speedway in a surprising performance, and he piled up eight Top-10 finishes for the season. Down the stretch run of last year he suffered a bit of a cool down, but in total it was a great campaign. Ankrum comes to GMS Racing this year and will be paired with veteran crew chief, Chad Walter. The potential in this driver-crew chief combination is very intriguing.

Ankrum won't be 18-years-old until a few weeks after Daytona, so that means he can't race until event number four at Martinsville. However, the youngster is poised to run nearly the entire schedule with the exception of the first three races. Gilliland and Crosley formed this race team last season and hosted a number of different drivers between the two trucks. Ankrum made two starts, and grabbed a surprising Top-10 finish at Phoenix last fall. The young Californian has been building his racing resume for the last few years. Ankrum dominated the K&N Pro Series East in 2018 to capture four victories and the championship in that series. Now he'll look to grab truck series Rookie of the Year in what is mostly a full-time schedule in 2019.