(Photo: Mitchell Richtmyre | The Podium Finish)
Christian Eckes had something building with ThorSport Racing.
He won a race and made 10 Craftsman Truck Series starts with the team in 2021. In 2022, he transitioned to full-time, and despite going winless, contended for several victories and made it to the Round of 8 in the playoffs. He recorded 15 top 10s in 23 starts — a career high by four.
After the season ended at Phoenix Raceway, Eckes believed he’d return to the team for another season. He hoped to build off what he accomplished with Jeriod Prince in their first full year together. Not so fast.
ThorSport, who previously ran Toyotas, reunited with Ford for the 2023 season — a decision largely based around the development of Hailie Deegan. Deegan took over for Eckes, leaving the 22-year-old from Middletown, New York in a predicament: stay with ThorSport in a smaller capacity or move on?
He chose the latter, thanks to a text from McAnally-Hilgemann Racing owner Bill McAnally.
“I don’t know if it was a coincidence or what, but the Friday before the Monday that I went to Ohio to kind of figure out where everything was [with ThorSport], Bill sent me a text wondering what I was doing next year,” Eckes told The Podium Finish. “I met with him — I actually really did everything over the phone because he was in California at the time, but as soon as I kind of declined the ThorSport stuff that we did have going, we moved forward really quickly.”
Eckes took over the MHR’s No. 19 truck, which was previously occupied by Derek Kraus for the last three seasons. Once everything got ironed out in the off-season, Eckes hit the ground running with success in 2023.
He started out the season with a third-place finish at Daytona International Speedway and a sixth-place finish at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. In just his third race, Eckes scored the organization’s first victory in the Truck Series with a win at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
With joining a new team and a new manufacturer in Chevrolet, Eckes didn’t know what to anticipate. However, he thought the transition went about as smoothly as it could’ve.
(Photo: Wayne Riegle | The Podium Finish)
“I didn’t know what to expect because everything that I had been at before has been a big team of four-plus teams at both [Kyle Busch Motorsports] and ThorSport,” Eckes said. “As I got more involved, I realized we have everything we need here to go and succeed.”
Eckes won another race later in the spring at Darlington Raceway and finished the regular season at sixth in driver’s points. But the story of his season has been some of the inconsistencies the No. 19 team has battled.
Between his two victories, Eckes had a five-race stretch that included three 30th-place finishes and two 15-place finishes. He got caught up in a pair of crashes at Bristol Dirt and Kansas Speedway and suffered suspension issues at Circuit of the Americas.
Eckes has leveled the curve at the conclusion of the regular season, finishing in the top 10 in four of the final six races and just missing a fifth with an 11th-place finish at Richmond Raceway. All things considered, Eckes deemed the regular season a success.
“I think we’ve done a better job this latter half of the regular season to kind of flatten that curve and get some consistency,” Eckes said. “I think we were taking some unnecessary risks throughout that five-week stretch, whether it was me putting us in dumb situations, and then there was just some dumb luck that happened throughout those weeks. Just kind of recognizing that to put ourselves in a better position, be a little bit more conservative in some situations, to put ourselves in positions at the end has really been the biggest thing for us to be a little bit more consistent.”
“We haven’t won since [Darlington], but we finished second and third a few times and kind of gotten more consistent. I’m pretty happy with the product that we’ve been producing. I feel like there have been some missed opportunities, but overall, I feel pretty good about where our trucks are at.”
(Photo: Mitchell Richtmyre | The Podium Finish)
Starting on Friday, August 11 and Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park, Eckes will begin a seven-race battle with his eyes set on a championship. Following IRP, a return to the Milwaukee Mile and a trip back to Kansas Speedway wrap up the first round.
Eckes will be guided in the playoffs by crew chief Charles Denike, who joined the No. 19 team for the final nine races last season. Eckes said they tend to think similarly, a reason why the two have worked well together.
“I’ve worked with a lot of smart people over my career and I honestly feel like Charles is the smartest,” Eckes said. “We work really well together in the aspect that we’re both really analytical and like things to be perfect. That’s kind of what I feel like makes you succeed in this sport is just the small details, and we’re both very detailed oriented. That’s a good thing, and we have a really good working relationship that we’ve built.”
Including Milwaukee and the season finale at Phoenix Raceway, four short tracks make up the seven-race playoffs. Eckes said that short tracks have been the biggest concern for his team this season, but believes they are headed in the right direction. He said they’ve leaned on GMS Racing, who won at IRP last year with Grant Enfinger, for a different approach in the opener.
The No. 19 team has a newly converted short-track truck to IRP that had success early in the year and has a brand-new chassis for Milwaukee. Eckes knows they’ll have the speed for a championship run — they just need to execute.
“Last year, we almost got [into the championship race] by not making any mistakes and just having a pretty solid playoff run. It wasn’t anything really special,” Eckes said. “But not putting ourselves in a position where we go for a win and then wreck and miss the next round is the biggest thing. Just staying consistent and running up front more often will project us through a little bit better.
“I feel pretty good about our chances heading into the playoffs.”
