ROCKINGHAM, N.C. — The Front Row Motorsports duo of Layne Riggs and Chandler Smith arguably had the fastest trucks in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series’ return to Rockingham Speedway, but they both ran dry in the closing laps in Friday’s (April 18) Black’s Tire 200 while running second and third behind Tyler Ankrum.
Riggs pitted with five to go from third to finish 11th, while Smith ran out in second with two to go and crawled to a 13th-place finish.
“We knew it was close,” Riggs said. “Per our calculations, it was going to be close, and I was trying to save some but just trying to run down [Smith]. I knew that me and him were on the same kind of strategy, but hindsight’s always 2020.
“You look back, it’s like, ‘hey, let’s just slow down and save some fuel to get a better finish,’ but all in all, I’m just proud of how good the truck was to win both stages. …
“We were fast all day today, just turned into a fuel mileage race at Rockingham. Who would’ve thought.”
Riggs stated that he and the No. 34 team believed they had enough fuel to make the distance — a prediction that was ultimately off by five laps. Smith knew he was in trouble, however, and the No. 38 team got its fuel number down to the science.
“We knew we were two laps short from the start,” Smith said. “We were kind of banking on a caution to make it on fuel, and that caution never came. I literally ran out of fuel right when I came underneath the start/finish line and got two to go.”
Ankrum ultimately put together a masterful fuel save by running the final 87 laps on one tank. He cruised to the win despite pitting seven laps earlier than Smith and Riggs, and he went on to win by more than six seconds over runner-up Jake Garcia.
An underrated master of fuel saving, Ankrum won his first Truck race at Kentucky Speedway in 2019 by saving fuel and did just the same at Rockingham to end his 130-race dry spell. He becomes the fourth driver this season to punch a spot in the playoffs, and the longest winless drought in Truck Series history is now history.
Stephen Stumpf is the NASCAR Content Director for Frontstretch and is a three-year veteran of the site. His weekly column is “Stat Sheet,” and he formerly wrote "4 Burning Questions" for three years. He also writes commentaries, contributes to podcasts, edits articles and is frequently at the track for on-site coverage.
Find Stephen on Twitter @stephen_stumpf