NCTS: Christian Eckes claims 2nd victory of 2023 at Darlington

On the second Overtime attempt in Friday night’s Craftsman Truck Series race at Darlington, Christian Eckes crossed the start/finish line underneath the white flag just before the yellow flag waved for a Grant Enfinger spin in Turn 3, giving Eckes his second victory of the season.

Eckes led a race-high 82 of 158 laps – including the final 27 – to claim his first win at The Lady in Black and the third of his career.

“I can’t say enough about this truck. I’m not that excited because it was such a damn good truck it drove itself,” Eckes said. “So proud of everyone on our team. It’s been a really, really rough couple of weeks.”

The rough stretch for Eckes included five consecutive finishes outside the top-10 after his win in Atlanta on March 18.

“To come back and win shows the resilience of this team, and how we had to win shows the fight in this team.”

William Byron, the fourth-place finisher driving the No. 51 for Kyle Busch Motorsports, hounded Eckes for several laps and closed within three-tenths of a second before Timmy Hill spun in Turns 3 and 4 with two laps left to force Overtime.

On the initial Overtime try, Jake Garcia made contact with the outside wall coming off of Turn 2 and spun off the nose of Taylor Gray on Lap 152 to force the second attempt.

Eckes and Stewart Friesen – who took home the second position – were gearing up for a thrilling final lap before Enfinger’s spin ended the race.

Tanner Gray came home third while Carson Hocevar recovered to finish fifth after Rajah Caruth – finishing one spot behind him – spun Hocevar on Lap 115.

Cup-regular Bubba Wallace, who made his first Truck Series start in over two years Friday, finished seventh in the No. 1 TRICON Garage Toyota.

Corey Heim started on pole, led 66 laps and finished eighth. Dean Thompson earned the first top-10 of his career in his 33rd race in ninth and Kaden Honeycutt finished 10th for his third career top-10.

Heim had the dominant truck early, leading the first 26 laps before Eckes’ truck came to life and was able to get around him to win the 45-lap opening stage. Heim regained the lead on the Stage 2 restart and led until three to go in the stage. That’s when Byron carried momentum from the high lane in Turns 3 and 4, pulled even on the frontstretch and made the pass in Turns 1 and 2 to claim the second stage.

Zane Smith had a night to forget as he was caught up in a wreck early in the final stage and finished 22nd. Fortunately for Smith he retains the points lead by nine over Ty Majeski who had a similarly disappointing night, finishing 31st after experiencing power steering issues throughout the race.

The Craftsman Truck Series is back in action next Saturday, May 20 as NASCAR makes its highly anticipated return to North Wilkesboro. The Tyson 250 will get underway at 1:30 p.m. ET on Fox.

Jason Guth
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