Christian Eckes extended his points lead in the strongest way possible at Nashville Superspeedway: by leading every lap.
Eckes’ win in the Rackley Roofing 200 was his third in the season, but that hasn’t happened many more times than that in the entire history of the Truck Series. In fact, no driver has led every lap of a Truck Series race since 2012 when Timothy Peters led every lap at Bristol driving for Red Horse Racing.
For Eckes and the No. 19, while dominating is an extra bonus, a win is always the goal. The team felt like they came up short the last time the series raced at Gateway, three weeks ago, and earned the best vindication their next time out.
“I felt like we should’ve won last time out at Gateway, but I came up a little short and finished second, and we were really motivated to get this truck better,” Eckes explained. “It’s done its job for the day. What an Adaptive One Chevy.”
As a Triple Truck Challenge race, the win confers on Eckes an additional $50,000, with Corey Heim and Nick Sanchez having won the other two rounds. Since no driver won more than one round, the bonus was never increased, but $50,000 is still a significant help for a race team or a significant bonus for a driver. Eckes wasn’t particularly concerned with that, though, after getting out of his truck.
“I’m more excited about the win right now,” Eckes acknowledged.
What concerned him more was the Playoff picture. While he leads the points standings, Heim has more wins – four – than Eckes, and each win gives valuable Playoff points. Plus, a win has special meaning for any competitor, and Eckes said he was disgruntled to see the four win stickers on Heim’s No. 11 truck heading into the weekend.
“I saw the 11 had four on it, and I got a little upset as I walked in, so now we’ve got another one to go catch,” he concluded.
Daniel Dye finished second, his first career top-five finish in the series, driving the No. 43 truck for McAnally-Hilgemann Racing.
“Man, confidence, I think, is so important when you’re driving a racecar, and to finish second like this…” Dye said. “Obviously Christian drove away, but I feel like at the end we were driving similar speeds. It feels really good. Just super excited that this happened. Like I said, the confidence thing is huge.”
Third place Corey Heim was unhappy to miss out on the chance for yet another win. Heim said his truck just wasn’t fast enough to drive up to the lead.
“Yeah, kind of screwed that one up,” Heim admitted. “I don’t know if we were better than the 19, but it’s hard to tell when he never got into dirty air. This is by the far the worst I’ve felt in dirty air in a while in a truck race, just feel like the 43 was in the way. We’re a lot better than them, just couldn’t pass at all, the groove never widened out. Definitely disappointing.
“Proud of TRICON Garage, Toyota Racing, Safelite for bringing a fast truck again. Just couldn’t go anywhere. Put the 19 back a spot or two, think we could’ve raced for it, but at the end of the day, finished third and that’s that,” he summed up his day.
Rajah Caruth and Tyler Ankrum rounded out the top five. Grant Enfinger, Ben Rhodes, Matt Mills, Ty Majeski, and Jake Garcia all scored top tens.
Clint Bowyer, formerly a Cup Series competitor and now a FOX TV analyst for NASCAR coverage, struggled throughout the day and then suffered damage on a restart midway through the race.
Bowyer plowed into Chase Purdy when Purdy failed to accelerate. The chain reaction caused Dawson Cram to spin off through the frontstretch as the field bottled up. Bowyer complained over the radio that Purdy started then braked and slowed down, causing the crash.
“We fought loose-in the whole time, from the word go, and I know from a lot of years of experience that that’s hard to overcome. You fix that and you hurt something else. We just kind of fought back and forth. I stalled on pit road…made a mistake, put us back in the back,” he summed up his truck.
“I don’t know what happened on the restart, they all checked up, just dead stopped in front of me,” he explained the accident.
Bowyer ended the day in 17th, on the lead lap.
“I will be back! I promise you, there’s no way in hell I’m ending on that,” Bowyer said before heading to the Nashville bars, promising a repeat in the Truck Series in the future.
The race featured seven cautions, six of which were for cause.
Most notably, Layne Riggs spun Stefan Parsons after getting into his left rear to bring out the caution that ended Stage 2. As a result, Riggs was held two laps by NASCAR for reckless driving, a rarely awarded penalty that took him completely out of contention. Riggs ultimately finished 25th, still down two laps.
The Truck Series returns at Pocono Raceway on July 12th. Counting that race, there are just four more races before the Playoffs begin, with enough points positions remaining for a win to guarantee a Playoff berth to any full-time driver.
RACE RESULTS
Photos: NASCAR at Nashville Superspeedway Friday June 28, 2024
- Christian Eckes makes history in dominant Truck Series win at Nashville - June 28, 2024
- Ross Chastain and others look to upset Hendrick dominance at Nashville - June 27, 2024
- Chase Briscoe and Josh Berry impress for soon-to-close SHR - June 23, 2024