Christian Eckes held off Kyle Busch by a mere 0.141 seconds on the final lap of the Weather Guard Truck Race at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway on Saturday night to score his second win of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season.
Eckes started the race from pole position and led a race-high of 144 laps in his No. 19 McAnally-Hilgemann Racing Chevrolet. His Bristol victory was the sixth Truck Series win of his career.
“There’s a lot behind this win,” Eckes said in his post-race interview on FOX. “From last year, missing out on the Championship 4 and losing the race with five to go — to come back and redeem ourselves was our number one goal.”
.Meanwhile, Busch won the first two stages and led 105 laps in the No. 7 Spire Motorsports entry after starting fourth. He’ll saddle up in his No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet on Sunday and hit the Bristol concrete once again for the Cup Series’ Food City 500.
“Just, track position. I let him (Eckes) go early in that run to just go burn his stuff off, then track position at the end just let him be in front of us and got him a win. Didn’t have enough rubber on the road to out-do him,” Busch said in his post-race interview. “It’s frustrating to not run as good as I’m accustomed to, so we’ve got some work to do.”
MHR’s Zane Smith filed into third. He was the only other driver to lead laps during Saturday’s race.
Matt Crafton and Tyler Ankrum completed the top five. Corey Heim was the highest-finishing Toyota in sixth.
“We didn’t qualify well, and we knew that would be the name of the game as part of track position goes. It was an uphill climb from the start. It’s really disappointing to not get any stage points, and come up short of a top-five, but most importantly come up short of a win,” Heim said.
Taylor Gray, Rajah Caruth, Grant Enfinger and Layne Riggs rounded out the top 10.
The race had six total cautions.