Toyota Racing Post-Race Recap
NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series (NGOTS)
Pocono Raceway
Race 14 of 23 – 150 miles, 60 laps
July 27, 2019
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Ross Chastain*
2nd, TYLER ANKRUM
3rd, HARRISON BURTON
4th, CHRISTIAN ECKES
5th, Brett Moffitt*
7th, TODD GILLILAND
16th, NATALIE DECKER
17th, MASON MASSEY IV
30th, AUSTIN HILL
31st, ANTHONY ALFREDO
*non-Toyota driver
Kentucky winner Tyler Ankrum followed up his victory with a runner-up finish today at Pocono Raceway.
Harrison Burton scored his first playoff point of the season as he won stage two. Burton finished third; his third consecutive top-five finish and fifth top-five in the last six events.
Christian Eckes, who won the ARCA Menards Series race on Friday, finished fourth. It was Eckes’ first career Truck series top-five finish in his seventh career start.
Austin Hill earned his second career NGOTS pole position. He scored his first just two races ago at Chicagoland Speedway.
TOYOTA QUOTES
TYLER ANKRUM, No. 17 RAILBLAZA Toyota Tundra, DGR-Crosley
Finishing Position: 2nd
Second-place run. Talk about how what you battled today at Pocono.
“Really just fought myself at the beginning of the race. I was kind of stepping on my own toes, overdriving the racecar. It’s really easy to do here. You don’t really feel that you are overdriving, but the lap times show it. Fought that with myself at the beginning of the race. Kind of fixed myself; it was smooth-going from there. I burned my tires up trying to chase down Ross Chastain. I couldn’t get close enough to him to really get the draft. I had an awesome Toyota Tundra. Got to thank RAILBLAZA, DGR-Crosley, everyone that got me here.”
HARRISON BURTON, No. 18 Morton Buildings Toyota Tundra, Kyle Busch Motorsports
Finishing Position: 3rd
Solid day today, Harrison. Talk about your finish.
“We had a really good truck. We were really, really fast. It was fun. We had to charge through the field there. We started ninth on the last restart and just had to go. I just ran out of time there in the end. It’s frustrating. There are guys that had good strategy. We were cutting it close on fuel. I knew they were riding around there a little bit. I thought maybe I could get to them, so I was driving as hard as I could there at the end, but it just didn’t come our way.”
CHRISTIAN ECKES, No. 51 SiriusXM Toyota Tundra, Kyle Busch Motorsports
Finishing Position: 4th
Finished with the win yesterday, and a solid top-five today. Talk about your Pocono experience.
“It’s a little frustrating, having a truck that good and not be able to win with it. Just kind of lost a lot of long run speed there. Overall, it was a great week. First and fourth. We will take this momentum and move on to Eldora and Michigan with KBM (Kyle Busch Motorsports) boys.”
TODD GILLILAND, No. 4 JBL Toyota Tundra, Kyle Busch Motorsports
Finishing Position: 7th
How was your race?
“Not real good. Kind of frustrating day just being stuck, getting passed a lot. The first couple restarts worked out for us. We were able to get up to third pretty fast. Then just started that first run really loose on exit. I couldn’t touch the gas. Guys were getting such big runs on me in the straightaways. They are really long here, so it makes a big difference. My guys made a lot of good changes on that one pitstop. We just didn’t have enough time. When you start the race like that, just falling and the momentum is not with you, it’s hard to regain that in one pit stop. I think we still made up quite a bit of ground on how we were. We just have to keep digging.”
