Jubilation for Tyler Ankrum, dejection for Stewart Friesen, Jake Garcia as NASCAR Truck Chase field set

It seemed like everything was working against Tyler Ankrum in Saturday's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. 

Brake issues plagued the McAnally-Hilgemann Racing driver for much of the afternoon, and after coming into the race with a solid 20-point cushion over 11th-place Stewart Friesen for the final spot in the Truck Series Chase, it appeared his efforts would be all for naught. 

The battle for 10th appeared to be between Friesen and Jake Garcia in the closing laps. A pit road penalty had set Garcia back, but he had charged back into the top 15 over the race's final run. As Friesen ran inside the top five and tried to hold over the likes of Tristan McKee and Kaden Honeycutt, Garcia was making passes and Ankrum was as well as the laps continued to tick off. 

However, a late caution forced teams to make a decision as to whether or not to pit for fresh tires for an overtime restart. Knowing his driver needed as many spots as possible, crew chief Mark Hillman kept Ankrum on the racetrack.

That call, along with superb wreck avoidance from Ankrum on the ensuing restart, only resulted in a 16th-place finish. But that was all the No. 18 team needed to hang onto a Chase berth by seven points. 

Tyler Ankrum not happy with NHMS run, but it was enough to make the Chase

"I'm so (expletive) mad at mad at all of y'all," Ankrum joked over the radio after the checkered flag. 

"It's very rare you get to come to a place as fast as this and you have no rear brakes and we can't fix the problem," Ankrum told Fox Sports. "We've had adversity like this throughout the year. I thought we were done with them. It came back. 

"Luckily Eddie D'Hondt, my spotter, he gave awesome advice. He told me just to turn my left-rear brake all the way off, run all the rounds of brake to the rear. It was able to solve half the problem."

Ankrum nearly fell out of the top 30 at one point and said at that juncture in the race, he thought his chance to race for a championship was over. 

"The last couple restarts for me in my head was like, it's one point, it's zero points," Ankrum said. "Got lucky. Did not perform like we belong in the Chase."

Ankrum will join the likes of Layne Riggs, Kaden Honeycutt, Chandler Smith, Christian Eckes, Gio Ruggiero, Ty Majeski, Grant Enfinger, Daniel Hemric and Ben Rhodes in the Chase and compete for a championship over the final seven races of the season.