Christian Eckes gets redemption Truck win at Bristol

A tale of two quests for redemption ended with a veteran-in-the-making beating a veteran making his return to Bristol. 

Christian Eckes earned his sixth NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series win Saturday night over Kyle Busch. Busch settled for second in his first NCTS start at Bristol since 2017.

For much of the night, Busch was in vintage form but Eckes kept him honest. Eckes won the pole and led the first 52 laps before Busch took over on a restart.

Busch took his turn, leading 105 of the next 106 laps and claiming stages one and two. 

Eckes saw stage three as his opportunity, however. Busch survived two restarts but six laps into that second green-flag run, he lost the lead to Eckes. 

Busch let him go, thinking Eckes would burn up his tires and fall back to him. While Eckes did, Matt Crafton entered the picture and challenged Busch. 

Crafton started 20th and made it to eighth in stage two. He was all over Busch who was all over Eckes, running tight together as the laps ticked down to 30 to go. 

When a caution fell.

“I was like, ‘Damn!’” Crafton said post-race.

Kyle Busch tried faking a pit stop from second, thinking he could pull other drivers to pit road and hang Christian Eckes out on older tires. However, no one went with him.

Eckes commanded the restart while Busch fell back into the clutches of Zane Smith, Eckes’ McAnally-Hilgemann Racing teammate.

Busch rallied on the outside lane, which had finally come into full usage by the end of the race and nearly won him the race. He came from a second back of Eckes to finish just 0.141 seconds behind him at the line.

Eckes earned redemption. While he led 150 of 200 laps and lost the lead — and a Championship Four spot — with six laps to go last year, he sealed the deal this year after leading 144 of 250 laps. 

“This is really sweet. Last year after losing the lead with a few laps to go and missing the Championship 4, I wanted to come back here and win and we did,” Eckes said. 

Busch chalked his loss up to the set of tires they put on during the final stage break. 

“We fought loose all throughout the race so we tightened our truck up all night. Then we put on the last set of tires and we were tight. So, just not being able to prepare in practice for what we were gonna get in the race hurt us. I let him go early on to let him go burn his stuff up. It’s definitely different not running up front and dominating like we always do so we got some work to do,” Busch said.

Busch’s second-place finish at Bristol comes after arguably his worst Truck Series outing in recent memory at Las Vegas. There, he finished 15th, one lap down, after falling back there on speed during the longest green-flag run of the 134-lap race.

TOP-10 FINISHERS: Eckes, Busch, Zane Smith, Matt Crafton, Tyler Ankrum, Corey Heim, Taylor Gray, Rajah Caruth, Grant Enfinger, Layne Riggs 

Caruth finished eighth after two major miscues on pit road.

During the first stage break, he parked just outside of his pit stall, forcing him to adjust his truck which dropped him to the back of the field.

Then, during the second break, he had the same issue. However, he didn’t adjust his truck and NASCAR penalized him for parking outside of his stall. 

Caruth fell outside of the top-20 and steadily climbed through the field, ending the night in eighth.

Layne Riggs left snake eyes behind in Vegas, as well as a roof issue in Atlanta and an early out at Daytona, as he finished top-10 at Bristol — a first on the season.

Crew chief Dylan Cappello kept him out during stage one and shuffled him inside the top-10, placing him tenth in stage two. That’s where he finished at the end of 250 laps in his No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford.

STAGE ONE TOP-10: Kyle Busch, Christian Eckes, Nick Sanchez, Ty Majeski, Zane Smith, Taylor Gray, Tyler Ankrum, Ben Rhodes, Kaden Honeycutt, Grant Enfinger

STAGE TWO TOP-10: Busch, Sanchez, Eckes, Majeski, Smith, Ankrum, Stewart Friesen, Matt Crafton, Rhodes, Layne Riggs 

In stage three, Ty Majeski spun while running under Tyler Ankrum. Majeski chided Ankrum for pinching but they never touched. 

Worse yet for Majeski, he collected teammate Ben Rhodes in his spin. Then, even worse, Majeski fell out of the race with an engine issue in the closing laps. He finished 34th, 80 laps shy of the checkered flag. Rhodes finished 16th. 

That final caution that cost Busch and Crafton a shot at Eckes was for Nick Sanchez and Stewart Friesen getting together off of turn four. Sanchez had a run on the outside lane and a bumper alongside Friesen when Friesen shut the door and turned himself.

Both trucks sustained damage, taking them both out of a top-10 finish. Sanchez finished 17th as the last truck on the lead lap. Friesen finished 22nd, two laps down.

Further up, Bayley Currey and Kaden Honeycutt finished 11th and 12th for Niece Motorsports. 

Next up for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series is a March 23 race at Circuit of the Americas. The No. 38 Front Row Motorsports truck is undefeated there with Todd Gilliland in 2021 and Zane Smith in 2022-23.