Christian Eckes continues to make short tracks look like clockwork in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.
Eckes led 133 laps to pick up his seventh career win and second win of the season Friday night (April 5) in the Long John Silver’s 200.
Eckes swept both stages and led 104 of the first 105 laps. After pitting and starting the final stage midpack, the No. 19 Chevy truck worked its way up to the front row on a restart with 29 laps to go.
After a lap of side-by-side racing with Ty Majeski, Eckes muscled his way in front of Majeski to take the lead. After surviving a series of late cautions, Eckes took the checkered flag as the first repeat winner of the Truck season.
“It hasn’t been an easy regular season to say the least,” Eckes said in an interview with Fox Sports 1 post-race. “We came in and weren’t that great here last year. Had maybe a sixth-place truck. We worked really hard on it and now we’re in victory lane. Super proud of this entire team.”
Majeski finished second after leading 66 laps.
Majeski said his No. 98 Ford team from ThorSport tried something out with hopes it’ll help when the series returns to Martinsville during the playoffs.
“We came here with a little bit of a different setup,” Majeski told Fox Sports 1 after the race.
“Stepped out of our comfort zone a little bit and tried something for the playoffs. That’s the one that matters. I think we’ve gotten better. The 19 was stout tonight, he was just a little bit better than us and he had better tires. I just could not launch on restarts.”
Chase Purdy finished third for his first top-five finish of the season. His previous best finish this season was 15th.
“It’s refreshing,” Purdy told Fox Sports 1 about his finish. “It’s been a rough start to the season and it’s nice to have a run like this.”
Nick Sanchez, who led one lap, took fourth and Tyler Ankrum rounded out the top five.
The rest of the top 10 included Taylor Gray, Rajah Caruth, Sammy Smith, Kaden Honeycutt and Corey Heim.
Post-race, a confrontation between Timmy Hill and Stewart Friesen was captured by the Fox Sports 1 broadcast. Hill was spun out by Friesen after the checkered flag. Friesen was involved in the final caution of the evening with 10 laps to go when he spun off the bumper of Grant Enfinger and collected Matt Mills. Friesen finished 19th while Hill finished 20th.
Eckes won stage one with Majeski, Layne Riggs,…
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