By: Zach Arnold

McAnally Hilgemann Racing teammates Daniel Dye and Tyler Ankrum led the field to the green flag after capturing the front row during Friday’s qualifying session. It was Dye’s first-ever career start from the pole; however, it did not take many laps to fall back.

Not too long into the first stage, hard-charging veteran Kyle Busch and 23-year-old Christian Eckes took the lead. Busch led a few laps until being passed by Eckes. A few laps into their battle, the first caution of the race, occurred when Keith McGee spun off of turn four.

Stage One ended after a short run. Eckes won the stage but ran into an early issue as the No. 19 truck had no brakes which ended his day moments later. The No. 19 crew decided to bring the truck to the garage and never fixed the issue.

Ankrum and CR7 Racing’s Grant Enfinger took the green flag to open stage two. Ankrum and Busch proved to have the two strongest trucks midway through the race. Battling between a few cautions, they both led laps in stage two. On the flip side, Rajah Caruth, Stewart Friesen, Tanner Gray, Thad Moffitt, and Layne Riggs all had a rough stage being involved in a caution. Busch won stage two which ended early because of a caution involving a crash with Jack Wood.

The third and final stage was a battle between Ankrum, Busch, and Enfinger. After a few restarts, it appeared Enfinger was in the best spot to win the race; however, he had a tire go down with under ten laps to go.

Ankrum’s race fell apart as he moved to the inside lane and lost momentum because of the lack of drafting partners. He was able to return to a seventh-place finish.

This left the door open for Kyle Busch to earn his 65th Craftsman Truck Series victory in his career, and Spire Motorsports’ first of the season.