Christian Eckes punched his ticket to second round of the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series (NCTS) playoffs with a fourth-place finish on Thursday night at Bristol Motor Speedway (BMS). The driver of the No. 19 Adaptive One Calipers Chevrolet Silverado RST clinched a berth in the Round of 8 thanks to a sturdy effort at BMS and extended his streak of consecutive top-five finishes to seven races. Eckes scored 50 points on Thursday night, tied for third-most of all drivers, and allowed him to advance with one race remaining in the first round.
Eckes began his effort at “Thunder Valley” by posting the fourth-quickest lap in practice and stopped the clock at 15.52 seconds in qualifying to start eighth on the grid. The three-time race winner this season immediately put the top lane to use on the start and instantly advanced to fifth in the opening laps. As the first 55-lap stage ran straight under green, Eckes ran inside the top-five until lap 46. Despite briefly running in sixth, Eckes found the extreme high lane and rocketed to third in the final laps of Stage 1 to score eight points on lap 55.
Crew chief Charles Denike and the Adaptive One Calipers team brought Eckes to pit road for his only pit stop of the night during the stage caution. Quick pit work allowed Eckes to exit pit road third and restarted fourth on the outside lane and instantly reclaimed third. As the stage wore on, he closed to the back bumper of the race leaders in lapped traffic by utilizing the extreme high line and took second on lap 101. A caution on lap 109 prematurely ended Stage 2 as Eckes ran second and collected nine additional points on lap 110.
Denike elected to keep Eckes on track during the stage caution to preserve track position. He restarted on the inside of the front row on lap 121 and settled into third position. While the balance of his Chevrolet trended loose over the final 50 circuits, Eckes managed to maintain a podium position. The final restart of the night came on lap 188 with 12 laps remaining and saw Eckes hold the fourth position until the checkered flag. He continues to lead the NCTS championship standings for the 11th race this season by 15 points with one event remaining in the first round.
Christian Eckes Quote:
“It’s a great turnaround for us, because I thought we were maybe a 10th to 12th-place race truck in practice. Kudos to Charles Denike and the guys for getting it tuned up to run top-five. We weren’t race-winning capable, but still a decent run. Just proud of everybody. Huge thanks to Adaptive One Calipers, NAPA, Gates, Instacoat, Chevrolet, and everybody involved. It’s cool to be locked into the next round but got to go take care of business at Kansas first.”
McAnally Hilgemann Racing PR
