Eckes went against the grain at Bristol, and he reaped the rewards.
He chose to stay out at the Stage 1 break after leading the whole first stage when most of his competition came down pit road, continuing to rack off the laps led. He didn’t pit until the end of the second stage, ensuring he swept the stages before surrendering the lead.
The converse strategy meant he came out of the pits in 19th and had to spend the closing laps of the race fighting his way through the field.
Eckes admitted that he and his No. 19 team didn’t expect to get the win after going for the strategy to sweep the stages, but he climbed through the field. That effort was helped by cautions: the race featured eleven total, and they put him in range of the leaders. Plus, he had a fast truck.
“I definitely think this is probably the best truck I’ve ever driven in my life,” Eckes said.
He acknowledged that the cautions were a critical element of his success, and he doesn’t think he’d have won without them.
“I don’t think so,” Eckes said. I mean, seven seconds is a real big thing to come back from… We definitely needed those cautions. If the cautions don’t fly, I don’t think we win that race. We finish sixth or fifth or fourth.
“I was surprised we moved through the field as quickly as we did since in practice I really struggled in traffic real bad. So whatever we did between practice and the race worked.”
It’s a special one to celebrate for Eckes since it’s his first win at Martinsville. It’s not, however, his first win this season: that came at Bristol. His McAnally Hilgemann Racing team has had a strong season besides, sitting sixth in the standings.
“It’s huge for me, I’ve always wanted a grandfather clock,” he said. “I’m just happy where we’re at regarding the race team.”
For second place Ty Majeski, the disappointment had nothing to do with his own performance and everything to do with how the cautions fell.
“Yeah, if we could’ve gotten a long green flag run, any one of those first two or three runs after he pitted, we probably win the race. So it just didn’t go our way tonight,” he admitted.
“But going back, I don’t know that I would’ve done anything differently, I think overall the 19 was just a little better than us and restarts were just my achilles heel and there were just too many of them at the end.”
Chase Purdy finished third. It’s not only his first top-five result of the season but his first top-ten.
For Nick Sanchez, things finally just worked out. He’s perfectly happy with a fourth place finish after not getting the results he’s felt like he deserved, both at Martinsville in the past and so far this season.
“I think the previous races here for us, we’ve had the speed that we had here, we just didn’t finish where we should’ve,” Sanchez said.
“Glad we finished top five,” he added. “Our finishes over the last few weeks are not indicative of our speed, so it’s just nice to get a finish, I feel like a good finish.”
The biggest benefit of the strong run, Sanchez said, is in the points standings.
“I think we were like minus-37 at first, and when you look at our finishes, it’s like, ‘how are you only 37 points away?’ So if we get runs like this, obviously we didn’t get stage points in the second stage for strategy purposes, but runs like this… we want to win the regular season championship, so runs like this will get us there.”
As for his chance to win, Sanchez said a long green flag run might’ve given him a chance, but he just didn’t feel like he had a strong enough truck to do it.
Tyler Ankrum rounded out the top five. Taylor Gray, Rajah Caruth, Sammy Smith, Kaden Honeycutt, and Corey Heim all earned a top-ten finish.
The big storyline coming into the race was Australian Supercars driver Cam Waters. His hopes to follow in Shane van Gisbergen’s footsteps and win on his debut were dashed in a crash in the final stage that caused smoke to barrel out of his truck and finally put an end to a contact-heavy battle deep in the pack.
Despite the poor result, Waters was happy.
“Look, I had so much fun tonight, totally different racing to what I usually do,” he said. “I just wanted to learn and I learned so much. Just at the end there… had nowhere to go and then knocked the radiator out of it. So a little bit of a shame but it was all about just having fun and learning.”
As for the future, his team put out a report that he would return in the Truck Series later this year at Kansas Speedway. Waters was not willing to confirm that for his part.
“I don’t even know if I am doing Kansas,” he said. “Literally, tonight is the first and only race that we have planned to be honest. I just wanted to get through tonight. I have stuff to focus on in Supercars. We will look at the schedule and see if there are any other things we can do but we will have to wait and see.”
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