Tyler Ankrum rallies to win wild ARCA race at Mid-Ohio

Ankrum, making just his second series start, took the lead early in Friday’s race but went off course just after the halfway break while trying to hold off Jesse Love for the lead.

Ankrum blended back in line at 12th but never let up and finally got back around Love with five of 42 laps remaining to reclaim the lead.

The 2018 champion of what is now the ARCA West Series ended up taking the win by 5.011 seconds over William Sawalich.

Ankrum will try for the weekend sweep as he competes fulltime in the NASCAR Truck Series for Hattori Racing Enterprises. He will start 13th.

“I knew we had a great car. We were really fast in practice, really fast in qualifying. I just had to pull my head out of my rear end and keep it up front,” Ankrum, 22, said. “I got super-lucky.

“I ended up in the sand pit but I had just enough speed to wedge my way through the sand. I can’t thank these HRE guys enough. Finally glad to get them a win.

“They brought an awesome car. If my car wasn’t as good as it was, I wouldn’t have been able to drive through the field like that. I never want to do that again.”

As Ankrum rallied to victory, Venturini Motorsports teammates Dean Thompson and Sean Hingorani – who both led the race at times – were involved in a last-lap wreck.

Hingorani, who had already been told to meet with ARCA officials after the race for an incident earlier with Bob Schacht, appeared to wait for Thompson to come by and then drove him off the course and into the sand pit.

Thompson was credited with a 10th place finish and Hingorani 13th.

Love, the series points leader, got off to a rough start and was forced to pit before the green flag to address an electrical issue in his No. 20 Toyota. He had to start from the rear of the field but rallied to finish sixth.