(Photo: Kevin Ritchie | The Podium Finish)
DARLINGTON, S.C. — Christian Eckes defended a series of late restarts and held off Stewart Friesen in the second NASCAR Overtime attempt to win Friday’s Buckle Up South Carolina 200 at Darlington Raceway.
Eckes notched the third win of his career and second of the 2023 season — tying Zane Smith for the most in the series. He also ended a streak of five finishes of 15th or worse, including three 30th-place results.
“Overall, really proud of everybody on this McAnally-Hilgemann Racing No. 19,” Eckes said. “Obviously, it’s been well documented, our last five races have been probably the worst stretch in my career, and not really any of our doing. We’ve had race-winning speed every time. Certain things go certain ways and we put it all together tonight.”
Through it all, Eckes had the dominant truck. He led a race-high 82 laps, including the final 27 circuits. Eckes won Stage 1 and finished third in Stage 2 to maximize an additional 18 stage points from the evening.
On Lap 114, Rajah Caruth made contact with Carson Hocevar, sending him spinning and causing a caution. Surprisingly, Corey Heim, who led 66 laps and seemingly had the only truck to contend with Eckes, elected to stay out while all other lead lap trucks pitted. On the ensuing restart, Heim plummeted through the field and out of the top 20.
(Photo: Kevin Ritchie | The Podium Finish)
From that point on, it was all Eckes. While other drivers altered pit strategies, such as Hailie Deegan pulling a similar idea as Heim, Eckes led every other green flag lap.
In the waning laps, Eckes battled Cup Series driver William Byron and had the white flag in his sights before a caution for Timmy Hill. On the first NASCAR Overtime attempt, Byron and Tanner Gray made contact in Turn 1, jumbling up the field behind them. Jake Garcia crashed down the backstretch, resulting in a second overtime attempt.
Eckes again got a strong restart, but this time Stewart Friesen, who quietly snuck into the top five, had something for him. As soon as Eckes took the white, Grant Enfinger slapped the wall and NASCAR called a caution, ending the race.
“In time past, I probably would have been a bit nervous [about late restarts], but I felt like our truck was so good that it could kind of do most of the work for me,” Eckes said. “This place is really, really tough to get a good truck and this is probably the best truck I’ve ever driven as far as speed-wise and drivability-wise.”
Friesen, in the midst of personnel change at Halmar Friesen Racing, recorded his second top-five in a row after finishing fourth at Kansas Speedway. In two races, he’s climbed from 14th to 10th in driver’s points.
“It’s a lot of teamwork here. Really proud of my guys,” Friesen said. We didn’t have a great truck in dirty air, but our TRD PRO was good in clean air. We had a good restart there at the end, but I was able to get the second spot.”
(Photo: Kevin Ritchie | The Podium Finish)
Gray notched his fifth top-five in nine races and scored his best result since the season-opener at Daytona International Speedway, where he finished second.
“We didn’t have the complete race that we wanted, but the end result was good and that’s all that matters,” Gray said. “We didn’t fire off that well, we were really loose to fire and fought that through practice. Then we were able to go from almost being a lap down to finishing third. Says a lot about Jeremy Donnelly (crew chief) and everybody on this TRICON team to make good adjustments all night. Pit crew was amazing tonight and gained us spots every stop and that’s all you can ask for.”
Results
STAGE 1: Christian Eckes, Corey Heim, Matt DiBenedetto, William Byron, Grant Enfinger, Carson Hocevar, Stewart Friesen, Bubba Wallace, Nick Sanchez, Chase Purdy
STAGE 2: William Byron, Corey Heim, Christian Eckes, Carson Hocevar, Bubba Wallace, Jake Garcia, Stewart Friesen, Grant Enfinger, Timmy Hill, Taylor Gray
FINAL: Christian Eckes, Stewart Friesen, Tanner Gray, William Byron, Carson Hocevar, Rajah Caruth, Bubba Wallace, Corey Heim, Dean Thompson, Kaden Honeycutt
