By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
For the second straight race, rookie Christian Eckes scored his career-best finish in the Xfinity Series.
Last week at Mexico City, it was a fourth-place finish. This week at Pocono Raceway, he improved to a third, finishing close in tow behind Jesse Love and winner Connor Zilisch.
Contending for the win and scoring his first top five on an oval in the series, Eckes feels the confidence boost with the well-needed momentum.
“I don’t know if I needed to be better than those two at the end, I just needed a better push that we didn’t get,” Eckes said of the final restart.
“I’m really proud of our team for getting it way better than in practice. I think we were 19th on average. We went to work and everyone on this team worked hard to get it good.”
The 2025 season was a long time coming for the 24-year-old, who spent seven years racing in the Craftsman Truck Series (full-time for four) before he got the tap to enter the second-tier level.
And with seven finishes outside the top 20, the results have been fluid for the Kaulig Racing No. 16, a car that won 11 races from 2021 to 2024 with AJ Allmendinger.
And now with two straight top-five finishes, Eckes was itching to be in Atlanta for the next round.
“It’s taken longer than any of us anticipated,” he said. “We expected to be contending right off the bat, which was maybe a little unrealistic. The cars are getting way better, which is helping me. And I’m learning how to manage these races better.
“This is what this team should be doing. We should be running third, we should be running fourth, contending in the top five all day.
“We just have to keep heading in the right direction. It’s definitely a confidence boost. I was pretty down on myself the last couple months. Bad result after a bad result. Whether it was our fault or not, I take that on the shoulder just trying to be the best I can.
“To have some good results back-to-back and contending for a win hopefully shows what’s to come for the future.”