Eckes Dominates, Then Shoves His Way To Martinsville Win

Christian Eckes celebrates his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series win at Martinsville Speedway Friday night. (Scotte Sprinkle photo)

MARTINSVILLE, Va. – An absolutely clinical drive under the lights at Martinsville Speedway allowed Christian Eckes to punch his ticket into the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Championship 4 in dominant fashion.

Eckes swept both stages and led all but 13 laps of Friday night’s Zip ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ 200 en route to his ninth career Truck Series win, fourth of the season, and a chance to race for a series title at Arizona’s Phoenix Raceway in one week’s time.

It was another dominant display at the Paper Clip for the 23-year-old from Middletown, N.Y., who completed a season sweep of the two Truck Series stops at NASCAR’s longest-tenured racetrack.

“I’m so proud of everyone at McAnally-Hilgemann Racing for working hard,” Eckes said in victory lane. “We’re going to Phoenix with a shot to race for a championship, and that’s all you can ask for in the position that we’ve been in throughout the season.

“This truck was so good tonight; that was refuse to lose right there.”

That didn’t mean the grandfather clock trophy came easy, however, as Eckes had to outlast a battle royale in the final five laps before driving his way into victory lane.

Eckes was the control vehicle for a lap-196 restart, with Taylor Gray – on fresh tires and needing a walk-off win in order to advance to the championship race – lined up to his outside and eager to pounce.

Gray did just that when the green flag waved for the final time, getting enough of a launch off turn two to lead by a half truck length down the backstretch, but Eckes wasn’t about to be denied.

Eckes punted Gray off the bottom in turn three, drove back to the lead, and appeared to be well on his way before Ben Rhodes came through to second on lap 196 and tried to get past Eckes in the same fashion.

Rhodes shuffled Eckes to lead lap 197, before Eckes got back to the inside in turns one and two, completed the pass for the win coming to two to go, and drove off into the night by 1.191 seconds.

It was a sequence of absolute chaos that ultimately ended with the expected result, given Eckes’ dominance throughout the race.

“This feels absolutely great,” Eckes said with a smile. “I wasn’t going to let our team lose this race. Our truck was too good. The deal with the 17 [Gray] was hard racing; I feel bad for the 99 [Rhodes], because I just got way too loose entering the corner underneath him.

“I’m sure everybody’s really happy with me right now,” he added wryly, “but right now, I don’t really care.”

By Martinsville short-track standards, Friday night’s showdown was clean most of the way through, with just one caution in the first half aside from the two stage breaks.

Matt Gould’s truck stalled on the backstretch on lap 35 to bring out the first yellow, while Dylan Lupton crashed just before the end of the second stage on lap 98. After that, however, chaos erupted late.

Three incidents inside the final 40 laps led to a messy closing stanza, though the top of the scoring pylon was the same at the end.

Kaden Honeycutt blew a right-front tire in turn two with 38 laps left, sparking the pit stops that gave many drivers fresh tires late, and Dean Thompson punting his TRICON Garage teammate Tanner Gray into Brett Moffitt at the entrance of turn three sparked the penultimate yellow flag with 19 laps left.

A multi-truck incident in turn two on lap 189 – that collected Johnny Sauter, Grant Enfinger, and Stewart Friesen, among others – was the catalyst for the final restart and the fireworks that ensued.

Rhodes ended up finishing second ahead of Purdy in the end, with Gray fading back to fourth after seeing a potential ticket to Phoenix out his windshield for a split second.

Gray’s frustration was clear after the checkered flag, as he nudged Eckes toward the turn four wall on the cool-down lap before climbing from his truck and making a beeline for the frontstretch victory lane stage to confront Eckes.

The two had a heated discussion before Gray walked away, his anger far from assuaged.

“I got shipped to the fence when I raced him perfectly clean through turns one and two,” explained a disgusted Gray, who missed advancing in the playoffs by 28 points. “What comes around goes around. I have to race him next year [in the Xfinity Series] all year long, so I guess he’s got that to look forward to.”

Nick Sanchez, another of the playoff hopefuls whose only path to the finale was via a win, closed the top five ahead of Layne Riggs, Corey Heim, Tyler Ankrum, Grant Enfinger, and Stewart Friesen.

Aside from Gray and Sanchez, Ankrum and Rajah Caruth – who suffered brake issues midway through the race and finished 21 laps down in 31st – were the other two drivers eliminated from the postseason.

Eckes, Heim, Enfinger, and 11th-finishing Ty Majeski will battle heads-up for a championship on Friday, Nov. 8 at Arizona’s Phoenix Raceway during the season-ending Craftsman 150 at the one-mile desert oval.

Perhaps notably, Eckes is the defending winner of the Phoenix finale, though he’d been eliminated from title contention at that point last year.

Broadcast coverage from Phoenix Raceway is slated for 8 p.m. ET, live on FS1, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.