After winning the ARCA race Friday afternoon at Pocono, Christian Eckes had to jump straight into the famed No.51 Kyle Busch Motorsports to compete in the Truck Series.
With the ARCA Menards Series win, the nearby Middletown, New York native was hoping to take the sweep at “The Tricky Triangle.”
Eckes started 13th at Pocono Raceway and eventually made his way up to the front. In Stage 1, he finished seventh while finishing outside the top-10 in Stage 2 after making a pit stop late in the stage to gain some track position in hopes of winning the race.
After pitting, Eckes restarted fourth for the final stage after staying out under the stage break.
It was clean and green for the rest of the way, and with fuel being somewhat of a concern for the race leaders, Eckes came home fourth.
“You know, it was a pretty good weekend overall,” Eckes said to MRN in his post-race interview. “I wish we could have swept the weekend a little bit, but you know, as a whole, the race was pretty exciting. It was a great weekend and it’s something we can build on for the next two races at KBM.”
Although Eckes was happy with his top-five finish, GMS Racing driver, Brett Moffitt was frustrated after finishing fifth.
Moffitt was hoping to put the Kentucky race behind him after running out of gas on the last lap in hopes of taking the checkered flag at Pocono.
The GMS Racing driver qualified his No. 24 Chevy in the fourth spot and placed fifth in Stage 1 and second in Stage 2.
He would restart seventh for the final stage but never could catch the lucky break or caution he needed in order to have a shot at the win. In the end, he finished fifth, earning his eighth top-five of the season.
“Very uneventful day here at Pocono,” Moffitt said to MRN Radio. “It’s frustrating, it’s so spread out, the PJ1 didn’t really come into play at all which was unfortunate. I applaud NASCAR on trying something, but we need to do something to make the racing better here. It’s just all about track position, getting out front and staying out front.”
“All in all, we had a pretty good No. 24 Chevy Accessories GMS Silverado. Jerry (Baxter, Crew Chief) and everyone did a great job working on what we had. It felt like we were fighting on some type of engine issue or driveline issue, where I couldn’t make runs on guys like they could get on me. It just plagued us all race on, I wasn’t able to be aggressive.”
