This weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway kicked off with great promise for Kyle Busch and the #7 Spire Motorsports Chevy Silverado. After qualifying in P4 for the Weather Guard Truck Race, Busch quickly showcased his dominance in the early half of the race by winning his 100th stage win. While this trend would continue with the RCR star sealing the second stage, Busch wouldn’t get the honors of visiting Victory Lane.

Christian Eckes was in significant form throughout the night, trailing Busch on nearly every restart for the lead in his #19 Chevrolet for McAnally-Hilgemann Racing. So when Busch tried his best to overtake the 23-year-old on the final restart, Eckes held his own unlike any other, bringing home his 6th Truck Series career win.

Christian Eckes beats out former boss to win at Bristol

While the NASCAR community was expecting Kyle Busch to bring home his 66th Truck Series career victory, Christian Eckes made the most of his redemption opportunity. After missing out on the Championship 4 round last year, Eckes was on a mission to break the top five this season with a top-ten finish at Daytona. Despite facing a DNF in Atlanta, Eckes continued chipping away on the frontrunners in Vegas. So by the time Eckes rolled into Bristol, the #19 was in a prime spot for Victory Lane.

Reflecting on the significance of this win, Christian Eckes shared right after the race, “Oh man, it’s so sweet. Yeah, there’s a lot behind this one, I talked about it earlier. The fans here are crazy and I love it!  There’s just so much behind this win. You know, from last year, missing out on the championship four and losing a race with 5 to go.” 

Eckes added, “To come back and redeem ourselves was the number one goal, and not only that. The first three races, how terribly they’ve gone, we’ve got a lot of issues. And when you come back and run really good, it just shows the resilience of this team, so just super pumped. Ready for the next 19 races!” 

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Christian Eckes showcased great pace throughout the race, eventually beating out his former boss at Kyle Busch Motorsports, for whom he had driven in 2018. While the #19 McAnally-Hilgemann Racing Chevy crossed the line in first, Kyle Busch couldn’t help but feel Bristol was a missed opportunity.

Kyle Busch unravels what went wrong for the #7 Spire garage

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Although Kyle Busch secured both stage wins at the Weather Guard Truck Race, the #7 Spire Motorsports entry began to lose pace and grip as the race entered its final stage. But what could’ve possibly gone wrong when Busch was looking like the favourite for the win? Busch revealed it had everything to do with Bristol’s surface curveball and a tire mixup.

“The crazy part about it is we fought loose all through practice and all through qualifying and all through the beginning part of the race, on older date codes of tires.” Since the Spire Motorsports crew were running older dated tires, the car felt rather loose with the traction, giving the team the inclination to set up the car in a certain way.

So when the team switched to newer date codes of tires, the car behaved way differently. Busch shared, “We put on the newer date codes of tires, and (it’s) instantly tight. So just not being able to prepare and practice on what you expect to race on, hurt us, so we tightened up all and obviously, I don’t think we were as tight as the #18 at the end, but you know, just track position.” 

With the car digging into the tarmac and losing tire wear faster, Busch decided to let Eckes overtake him to lure the #19 into burning up its tires. Unfortunately, this worked out against the #7 garage. Busch concluded, “Just the aero effects let him be in front of us and got him a win. Didn’t have enough rubber on the road to outdo him but thanks to Spire and Brian and everybody in this team for giving me a chance to come out here, definitely learning a lot.” 

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While it’s safe to say Kyle Busch’s former apprentice at KBM has certainly grown into quite a competent driver, the RCR star now sets his sights on the Cup Race.