Eckes Looks to Beat “Miles the Monster” for Season Breakthrough
Venue: Dover Motor Speedway
Events: ECOSAVE 200
Date: Friday, May 15
Location: Dover, DE
Track Description: 1.0-mile oval
Distance: 200 laps / 200 miles (5:00 p.m. ET – FOX Sports 1, Motor Racing Network, SiriusXM)
Looking for a Breakthrough … Christian Eckes has battled through adverse scenarios over the last two NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Trucks Series (NCTS) events and returns to Dover Motor Speedway looking for a season breakthrough. The driver of the No. 91 Cloyes, Rotomaster Chevrolet Silverado RST returns to “The Monster Mile” for his third overall start on the one-mile high banks, looking to capture his fifth victory on a concrete surface. Eckes has climbed into the top-five in points over the last two weeks, fighting through the adversity of alternator issues at Texas Motor Speedway and multiple incidents last week on the road course at Watkins Glen International. He and the No. 91 team hope for a clean tilt versus “Miles the Monster” and walk out of Dover, Del. with their first victory of the season.
High Ceiling … As the NCTS tour crosses the one-third mark this weekend at Dover, Eckes has displayed a high ceiling for the performance of the No. 91 team thus far through eight races. The group has endured four races worth of hardship between mechanical gremlins and incidents. Despite the headwinds, Eckes has finished in the top-five in three of the other four uneventful races. Eckes also has finishes of eighth or better in the last five races and led laps in three races. He returns to Dover a year after posting a top-10 result at “The Monster Mile” in his NASCAR Xfinity Series rookie campaign and also has one NCTS start to his credit, which came in 2020.
Season to Date … Through eight of 18 regular season races, Eckes is fifth in the championship standings, 71 markers behind the leader. He has recorded three top-five’s and four top-10 finishes with a pair of stage wins occurring at Darlington Raceway and Bristol Motor Speedway. His 140 laps led are second-most among full-time NCTS competitors.
Tune In … On-track action begins Friday afternoon at 12:30 p.m. ET with practice and qualifying on the FOX One app. Race coverage goes live on FOX Sports 1 at 5:00 p.m. ET Friday evening. Stay connected with the No. 91 Cloyes, Rotomaster team by following @BMR_NASCAR on Twitter, @bmr_nascar on Instagram, and Bill McAnally Racing on Facebook.
Christian Eckes Quote:
On the NCTS returning to Dover for the first time in six years:
“Dover is a really demanding racetrack. It’s super high speed, high banked and you feel a lot of load in the truck every corner. It’s a place where you really have to hustle but need a well-balanced truck to make speed. We’ve had some success at the concrete tracks in the past, so it’d be nice to add Dover to that list too. We’ve been steadily improving our overall speed throughout the year, but we need to execute a clean day with our Cloyes, Rotomaster Chevy. We’ve had to battle through a lot of things this year, but our group has done a good job fighting through issues, like we’ve done over the last two weeks. If we can qualify well and execute cleanly, I think we’ll have a shot at it this week.”