In what seemed highly unlikely this event would take place due to early cancellations this year for COVID, the Truck Series will get to race at Texas Motor Speedway this weekend after series officials found a way to reschedule to the event.
Flashing back to last week, the Truck Series race at Kentucky only completed two stages, before it got cut short due to Mother Nature. Despite that, race fans saw a first-time winner GMS Racing driver Sheldon Creed. It wasn’t the way most drivers want to end up winning, but a win is a win and the victory was the first of his career in 37 starts. Though, Creed will look to earn that victory the hard way and be able to celebrate with a burnout on the track.
However, Creed will have to hold off 35 other drivers in order to get his second win of the season.
Here are five potential drivers who could end up winning Saturday’s Vankor 250 at Texas.
- Kyle Busch- “The boys are back in town.” Yep, you heard that right. The All-time wins list leader is back this weekend in his own No. 51 Toyota Tundra. This season, Busch has only managed two wins out of his four starts, but if you look at the stats and races, he probably would have had four wins to his name. The Las Vegas native has a pretty good chance to add a third to win column Saturday. Busch has made 13 starts and achieved four wins, including winning last year’s race after leading 97 of the scheduled 147 laps. His other three wins came in 2013, 2010, and 2009. However, Texas can be a tricky track for Busch, as he has four DNF’s with two of those due to engine woes. But, if the No. 51 team can have a flawless race, Busch should be back in victory lane. Even so, it’s hard to bet against him.
- Grant Enfinger- While Enfinger doesn’t have any wins at Texas yet, he’s been close over the last few years. His best finish was third in his first outing in 2017, but really shined in last year’s event. Enfinger led 44 laps after qualifying third. The ThorSport driver also has earned a pole position in the March race as well. Overall, the Alabaman has seen four top fives and five top 10 finishes, earning him a 5.7 average finish. In addition, Enfinger has had some solid stage finishes to his credit. The team is on a three-race winless streak, but it would not be surprising if Enfinger pilots the No. 98 Ford to victory lane.
- Johnny Sauter- If Enfinger doesn’t win, it may very well could be his teammate Johnny Sauter. Even though his past three finishes haven’t been too kind for Sauter, he’s seen great success in 23 starts at the 1.5 mile speedway. The Wisconsin native has five wins including two consecutive victories from 2017 to 2018. In the reunited 2019 season, Sauter finished third after starting seventh and led seven laps. Not only has Sauter won two consecutive races at Texas, but the ThorSport driver also accomplished that feat twice by sweeping the two races in 2012. And with the statistics, he’s completed 99.9 percent of the laps and impressively, has no DNF’s. Sauter even won Stage 1 in the June event and Stage 1 in the 2017 June event.
- Tyler Ankrum- Kentucky was pretty much a forgettable race for Ankrum and the No. 26 GMS team, after trying to play pit strategy and getting caught by the weather. This weekend, Ankrum has a good chance to potentially finish inside the top 10 or five, if the opportunity presents itself. He only has two starts, but both of those finishes were sixth and third, respectively. As for the stages, in the March event, Ankrum finished seventh and 10th, while in the June event, the GMS Racing driver led nine laps en route to a top-five finish.
- Sheldon Creed- It may be pretty obvious picking last week’s winner, but a win can do everything in this sport. The victory can help a driver by giving him momentum or help continue his moment, and the win last week could come at a good time for Creed with the playoffs lurking in the background. At Texas, Creed only has three starts with the best finish of third in his most recent outing and led five laps. Also in last year’s event, Creed placed eighth and 10th in both stages. The Californian did manage to have a runner up finish in the first stage in the 2018 November event.
Qualifying can be kind of tricky as well, but in the majority of the races, most event winners have come from the pole position. In fact, just five drivers only have won from the pole position, with former Truck Series driver Todd Bodine last accomplishing the feat in 2007. The lowest a race winner started was 21st set by Cup Series rookie Christopher Bell in 2017.
Toyota has 19 manufacturer wins with Todd Bodine getting their first victory in 2004. Chevrolet has 17 victories with Jay Sauter being the first driver to give Chevrolet the victory in 1999. No longer a manufacturer in NASCAR, Dodge has just five victories, as Dennis Setzer won their first race in the 1999 June outing, while Ford only has three total wins. Ford won the first race here back in June of 1997, with the help of the late Kenny Irwin Jr.
As for stages, Christopher Bell, Noah Gragson, Stewart Friesen, Grant Enfinger, Justin Haley, Myatt Snider, Kyle Busch, and Ben Rhodes have all won stages since they were implemented in 2017.
The rest of the entry list for the Vankor 250 can be found here.
The Vankor 250 is scheduled to get underway shortly past 8 p.m./ET on Fox Sports 1. The race can also be heard on the Motor Racing Network.
