LEBANON, Tenn. – Maybe the night belonged to Christian Eckes. After all, he won the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Nashville Superspeedway in dominating fashion, leading every lap.
But overall, McAnally-Hilgemann Racing had a great Friday (June 28) night as well, placing three trucks in the top five. Just behind Eckes, M-HR teammate Daniel Dye set a new career high with a second-place finish.
“I think just straight up, that’s experience with Christian,” Dye said of his teammate after the race. “I think that I maintained well the first couple of laps, but then he just seemed to be a tick better.”
Dye entered the weekend 37 points behind the Truck Series Playoffs cut line. The No. 43 Chevrolet Silverado started the race ninth but found the top five early in the race, earning 13 stage points combined in the first two stages. Adding in his finish, Dye has now closed the deficit to just 14 points behind the cutline.
“That’s a huge cut,” Dye said. “That’s just a good feeling to cut off that much.”
With three races left before the Truck Series Playoffs kick off, Dye hopes to simply stay consistent.
“Hopefully (we’ll) do that again the next couple of weeks and have ourselves a good buffer,” said Dye. “That win obviously would have locked us in, that would have been nice, but man, you’ve just got to chip away at it.”
While a trophy would have been nice, a new career high provides plenty of solace.
“What a good feeling to finish in the top five finally,” Dye said, “but then finish runner-up. To my teammate, to have these guys on the 18 finish fifth is good too.”
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