Christian Eckes lengthened his advantage in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Trucks Series (NCTS) point standings with a runner-up finish at Indianapolis Raceway Park (IRP) on Friday night. The driver of the No. 19 NAPA Auto Care Chevrolet Silverado stepped closer to his first regular season crown with his fourth-consecutive podium finish and owns a 50-point lead with one race remaining before the playoffs. Eckes nearly had a perfect night as he swept both stages to add to his playoff point total, led for the 16th-consecutive race, and earned the most points of all drivers with 55.
Eckes began the night from sixth and instantly asserted himself as a threat for the win. He quickly jumped to fourth position on the opening lap and held that position until the evening’s first caution flew on lap 43. Crew chief Charles Denike and the NAPA Auto Care team brought Eckes to pit road for four tires, fuel, and a batch of adjustments to improve his tight handling condition. He restarted third on lap 50 and made a bid for the lead with an improved balance. Eckes dove to the bottom in Turn 1 to claim the lead on lap 56 and pocketed his sixth stage win of the season on lap 60.
Stage 2 went green on lap 69 and Eckes briefly surrendered the lead after electing to restart on the outside lane. He methodically worked over the race leader and retook the lead by lap 84. He surgically knifed his way through lapped traffic over the next 36 laps to tally his second playoff point of the night on lap 120 to earn the Stage 2 win and swept both segments.
The NAPA Auto Care team went to work again under the ensuing caution flag with a lightning-quick four-tire pit stop with a chassis adjustment that preserved Eckes’ lead. He restarted as the race leader on lap 129 and jumped out to the lead once again. However, the handling on the No. 19 Chevrolet began to swing too tight in the middle of both corners as the run progressed. Eckes ran second on lap 145 and hung on for his ninth top-five of the season as he took the checkered flag in second position.
Christian Eckes Quote:
“Overall, just super proud of our NAPA Auto Care Chevrolet team. We thought we were going to be a little bit better this time than last year, but P2 to the same truck in the same exact spot. Just proud of the effort and we’ll move on to Richmond. I swung super tight. I was tight most of the race. I was pretty happy of my Stage 2 balance and it just went tighter, and tighter, and tighter, and just couldn’t hang on there at the end. But like I said, overall proud of the guys for trying something a little bit different here and we’ll learn and move on.”
McAnally Hilgemann Racing PR
