FORT WORTH, Texas – It was an overtime finish to cap off a wild Friday night in the SpeedyCash.com 220 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Texas Motor Speedway. Stewart Friesen, seeking his first win since November 2019, and Christian Eckes, looking for his first win of the season, lined up on the front row for the two-lap overtime shootout.
The two were side-by-side through the first two turns until Friesen narrowly took the lead by 0.122-of-a-second en route to his first win in 53 races and leaving Eckes just shy of Victory Lane.
“It was hectic, I wanted to race Eckes head to head because I thought we had a little bit better [of a] truck,” Friesen said. “We had passed him once earlier.”
The popular Canadian driver was not only thrilled to knock off Eckes and celebrate his success, but he finally triumphed in an overtime finish.
“These green-white-checker [finishes] rarely go in my favor,” Eckes said.
Unfortunately things weren’t as positive for Eckes who fell just short of matching his one career win from last season at Las Vegas.
Eckes marked this finish as the third event he felt he and his team should have won. The 21-year old from New York feels like he is and his group are close to where they need to be.
“We’ve been close a couple of times this year,” Eckes said. “Felt like we should have won Daytona, felt like we should have won Vegas, now I feel like we should have won this race. I’m very proud of everybody for working hard to get our stuff faster, we just need a little bit more.”
From the get-go of the green-white-checker finale, it was clear Friesen was determined to prevail. Eckes made valiant efforts to try to snag the advantage, but to no avail.
The 38-year old winner made it tough on the trailing youngster, as he scurried his way to the finish line, booking his ticket to Victory Lane.
“I knew going into [turn] one or two he was going to hold it wide open and I was going to hold it wide open and whoever won, won,” Eckes said. “They had a little bit more speed than us … man it’s frustrating.”
After four top-five finishes at TMS before his fifth one tonight, Friesen credited “the best restart I’ve hit in my career” and a helping hand from third-placer Ryan Preece to his success. Friesen led seven times for a field-high 60 laps, with Eckes notching three for 40.
“Just needed to hit a clean restart,” Friesen said. “It was probably the best restart I’ve hit in my career. We were able to race with him and then I wanted to throw a big slider and get clear. Big thanks to [Ryan] Preece, he pushed the snot out of me.”
While it was cool to see Friesen end a near three-year drought, you have to feel for Eckes. Amid a bit of a slump, Eckes was able to find some positives looking ahead from the bitter loss.
“It’s been kind of a rough stretch here for a little bit. I’m glad to show that we can actually be here and win races. The wins will come and we’re hungrier than ever.”
“I obviously wish we were sitting in victory lane right now but it is what it is.”
Up next, the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series looks to the North Carolina Education Lottery 200, scheduled for Friday at Charlotte Motor Speedway at 8:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. The defending race winner is John Hunter Nemechek, who now holds his first lead of the Truck Series standings following a sixth place finish Friday.
