Objectively speaking, the NASCAR Truck Series championship at Phoenix Raceway last year was one of the most embarrassing races in the history of the discipline and resulted in officials cracking a figurative whip.
There were meetings before the season where NASCAR made clear to this roster that the antics that defined 2023 would not be tolerated in 2024 and the end result has been a much more professional driving standard more often than not.
But the stakes have been raised over the playoffs, especially in the closing laps at Martinsville last weekend, and championship favorite Christian Eckes (arguably) needlessly made a pair of enemies in Ben Rhodes and Taylor Gray.
Eckes’ decision making denied Gray a chance to race for the championship too and the latter very well could be within his right to make Friday night at Phoenix difficult at the very least. Eckes has spoken to Rhodes but not Gray.
“I did talk to Ben because I felt he hit me first for sure, and then I hit him and hit him again, so I was disappointed about the second contact, which wasn’t intentional, but I reached out to him because I thought it was warranted. I did not reach out to Taylor because I didn’t think it was warranted and he wasn’t going to want to hear what I had to say.
“But same deal: He hit me before the caution came out and I hit him back, probably a little more than I should have, but at the end of the day, I’m happy we won the race and we’re moving on.”
Gray needed nothing short of a win to advance to the championship race and did use the bumper while trying to get around on fresher tires before a caution shortened that battle but took the outside on the ensuing restart.
Eckes, who was virtually already locked in, washed up the track on the final restart, denying Gray a clean race, and got passed by Rhodes. Gray then used the bumper to get back by Rhodes and was confronted by Gray in Victory Lane. Rhodes suggested that Eckes will be at Gray’s mercy on Friday night.
But in not letting Gray win, it also kept an arguably stronger driver in the final four in Ty Majeski too.
“You can look at it that way but my mentality is that’s a losing mentality to look at it like that,” Eckes said. “Maybe there were decisions I could have made to make the field easier but at the end of the day I wanted to win and felt like our team deserved to win.”
Pecking order
Regardless of the potential for extracurricular, Eckes is the championship favorite and has finished in the top-10 of literally every single race but one, and he was leading at Atlanta in February in the race where he broke.
Eckes, 23, has a 5.5 average finish!
“We have momentum, but it’s Phoenix, anything can happen,” Eckes said. “All you have to do is be good at one race and that’s this weekend. You can be good all year or you can be bad all year, come win this race and you’re a champion. I don’t necessarily look at momentum, but I’d say it was on our side if there was some.”
But it’s not totally a straightforward expectation that Eckes should dominate on Friday because Corey Heim has six wins this season, his second with Tricon Garage, with a 7.3 average finish. If Eckes is 1a this season then Heim is 1b.
“A lot of people have talked about us being a little more hit or miss this year,” Heim said. “Compared to last year, I feel like we were always top-five, but couldn’t close them out. This year, I think we are dominating winning or kind of struggling a little bit. I feel like our stuff is as good as anybody’s when we are on point, and we just have to make sure that we are on point this weekend.”
But then there is Grant Enfinger, who won the first race of the final multi-race round at Talladega in October and then followed it up with a win at Homestead too. Since then, they have done nothing but prepared for one race.
This one.
“Talladega feels like a year ago, and since then, we’ve never taken a car to the wind tunnel but we took a car to the wind tunnel so huge thank you to Team Chevy for allowing us to do that. That’s an opportunity that locking in early allowed us to do that we wouldn’t have otherwise.
“It’s a clean slate now but the weeks leading up to this is definitely an advantage for our team.”
And don’t forget that this is a smaller, one-car family team too, one bonded by close relationships and a conviction from the manufacturer that they were worth investing in. With that said, Enfinger said he and crew chief Jeff Stankiewicz believed a Championship Four berth was obtainable.
“We brought a lot of guys to CR7 Motorsports that have a lot of experience, and have been here and done that, and Jeff has won a championship here before (with Sheldon Creed) so a lot of our guys have done this …,” said Enfinger.
“For me and Jeff, we expected to be here. We didn’t expect to have the struggles we had at the beginning of the year. It’s a huge accomplishment for CR7, and regardless of the outcome, we’re going to view this as a great year.
“Since Talladega, Jeff has been on kill and smells blood in the water. We feel like we have a small advantage and are looking forward to this race.”
At the same time, you can’t out Majeski, who has been at his best at Thorsport Racing and with crew chief Joe Shear Jr. on shorter flat tracks like Phoenix, where he also led 46 laps last year.
“I think this is our type of racetrack,” Majeski said. “Anytime Joe and I show up to a flat short track, I feel like we’re a threat to win. I feel like we’ve all kind of had our parts of the season where we’ve been dominant and I really feel like the Championship 4 that are here really are probably the four that deserve to be here the most. That doesn’t happen all the time with this format, so it’s good to see that.
“I think that’s good for the sport, good for everybody involved to have us four here. It’s going to be an interesting race for sure. I feel like we have as good a chance as anybody. Like I said, being on a short track I feel really good about our chances.”
About 2023 …
Despite the professional driving standards shown over the years, everyone involved in the final four on Friday still have what happened last year in the back of their mind
- A restart zone that was inexplicably moved up
- Carson Hocevar overdrove a corner and spun championship leading Heim
- Restarts beget more restarts, several crashes
- Enfinger leading with four laps to go when Heim retaliated on Hocevar
- Enfinger loses the championship lead because of a bad Rhodes restart
- Rhodes wins the championship when Enfinger can’t make it back to the front
Enfinger was very frustrated with Heim after that race because the retaliation came at the back of the field and denied Enfinger the championship. He confronted him outside the media center that night and Heim did more listening than talking.
“We talked after the race,” Enfinger said. “And at the end of the day, these races are chaotic, in this series more than others. The championship race last year was a black eye for our sport a little bit but it’s in the past as far as I’m concerned.”
Eckes is going to hope, especially if he’s leading, that what happened at Martinsville is in the past too.
Heim says he’s not thinking about any of it.
“I try not to think about that too much, to be honest with you,” Heim said. “Our goal is to go out and lead the most laps, and never have to pass anyone – just go out and dominate. That is definitely the goal, but I guess you always have that chance that it will turn into a mess. It is a very high stakes weekend, and you saw that last year. My goal is to keep it clean and win the championship.”
Is Majeski worried about a second straight year of Truck Series championship theatrics?
“Man, I hope not,” Majeski said. “You never want a championship race to turn into that. I feel like moving the restart zone back will help that. We were so bunched up with how late the restart zone was or how close it was to the start-finish line. Everybody was bumper to bumper and as soon as we hit the start-finish line you just fanned out and went wherever people weren’t. I think with us being able to build up some more speed, go through more shifts, that’s going create a little more separation where hopefully you won’t see what we did last year.”