Toyota Racing – Harrison Burton, Christian Eckes and Todd Gilliland
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS)
Martinsville Speedway – October 26, 2018
Kyle Busch Motorsports drivers Harrison Burton, Christian Eckes and Todd Gilliland were made available to the media at Martinsville Speedway:
HARRISON BURTON, No. 51 Morton Buildings Toyota Tundra, Kyle Busch Motorsports
How much fun is it to race together all these years?
“It’s a lot of fun. We all work together really well and me a Christian (Eckes) road-tripped up here together. It’s cool. We get to have our really good friends working along beside us and on our team as well so that’s a lot of fun. We all are goofy and have a lot of fun. When it comes time to go to work, we get down to work and we’ll do anything to win and that’s kind of what’s fun is everyone says you can’t have friends at the race track, but we’re all really close and when it comes down to racing, I’ll be the first one to say that we all want to beat each other more than almost anyone else. We have a lot of fun, but we’re also super competitive, so it’s a great balance for sure.”
Talk about being able to run all race tracks now that you’re 18 years old and coming to Martinsville as your home track.
“It’s cool to finally turn 18 and now I can kind of finish the year off strong. I’m running all the last four races with KBM. I’ll be here, Texas, Phoenix and Homestead. We’ve got some big tracks. I just ran my first 1.5-mile last weekend at Kansas in the ARCA car and wound up second, so the doors are opening up, now it’s just time for me to take advantage of those opportunities and go out and get wins on the big tracks. We had a good first start at Kansas with second, but I’m hungry for wins. First, we’ve got to think about Martinsville and focus on that because I feel like we have a chance to win here as well, but it’ll be really really cool to win on a big track early for sure.”
CHRISTIAN ECKES, No. 46 Craftsman Toyota Tundra, Kyle Busch Motorsports
What are your Truck Series plans for 2019 after announcing a full ARCA schedule?
“I’m not really sure yet, but I’m really looking forward to getting back in the ARCA Racing Series next year. Hopefully I’ll be able to make more truck starts like this. Really looking forward to having a good race at Martinsville this weekend. It’s not the greatest with the rain right now, but hopefully we can get on track tomorrow and have a good weekend.”
You had a lot of success on short tracks in the ARCA series this year. Can you translate that this weekend in the truck?
“Yeah, I hope so. Like I said, it definitely sucks not getting track time today, but I’ve been here in a Late Model and stuff like that, so hopefully that can translate. Sure, it was a couple years ago, but a short track is a short track, so hopefully I can learn it through qualifying and get a decent starting spot. I think it’s 200 laps tomorrow, so it should be a lot of fun. I’m really looking forward to it.”
TODD GILLILAND, No. 4 JBL/SiriusXM Toyota Tundra, Kyle Busch Motorsports
Why does everyone assume you will have the most eventful Martinsville race weekend?
“I don’t know on that one. Maybe they just expect me to do more dumb stuff in the race. We’re just here to win. With all this rain, we have a lot of extra down time so maybe we’ll find a go-kart track or something.”
Has it bothered you that you haven’t won this year?
“Absolutely. I felt like we were going to be a little bit strong than we have been so far. I really didn’t expect it to be such a hard transition, but I feel like we’ve been gaining on it every week since the beginning of the year and I feel like we’ve got competitive speed, top-five speed and now it’s just about getting that little bit extra. As far as KBM-wise, I feel like everyone’s working harder than ever in the race shop and preparing the best trucks possible for these last four races. We were really strong here in the springtime – probably one of our best races and I think with the extra experience I’ve got with my team and everything, I think we’ll be just as good tomorrow. To finish up the season, we’ve got some really strong race tracks coming up for us. I think a win could possibly come this season. It’s one of those things I feel like once you start putting more pressure on yourself, nothing good happens. It’s just about letting it come to us and really just being patient with every race.”
