Christian Eckes of Middletown, New York, started from the pole position, led almost all of the laps and survived three green-white-checkered overtimes to win World Wide Technology Raceway’s eLeague CK Power 125 presented by Raceway Gives. The iRacing event for the Elite Racing League was aired free-of-charge on Speed51.com. Eckes is a NASCAR Gander Outdoors & RV Truck Series racer, driving for Kyle Busch Motorsports and Toyota Racing. The only time Eckes relinquished the lead was when he pitted. Landon Huffman finished second and Quebec’s Raphael Lessard was third for a one-two-three NASCAR finish.
“I honestly thought Landon was going to beat me there at the end,” said Eckes. “He was ‘way faster but the cautions kept coming and everything kinda aligned for me to hold him off. Overall it was a great race. I think we all but led a couple laps. It was a fun race.
“It (Truck) was definitely pretty free (into the corners). That’s kinda why I thought I was really good, later in the runs,” Eckes added. “Landon was really good on the short runs and was able to run me down every time we’d get going, but thankfully a caution (flag) would come out and kinda saved me. I’d get a good restart and eventually bring home the win. Landon definitely kept me on my toes.”
Austin Blair of Fairview Heights, Illinois, was the highest-finishing local driver. Blair, a USAC Silver Crown Series driver and FAA-certified drone pilot ran as high as fifth place during the race and eventually finished sixth.
James Davison was the highest-finishing INDYCAR driver (fifth) and NHRA’s Ron Capps was 25th across the finish line.
Scott McClendon Jr. of Florissant, Missouri was running in the top five with 10 laps remaining but suffered a netcode issue and wound up in 15th place. McClendon races at the Gateway Kartplex at WWTR.
WWTR PR
