By Sarah Handy, Staff Writer
It was the result that Kyle Busch Motorsports driver Christian Eckes was looking for this season. Eckes scored his first top-five of 2020 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Saturday afternoon.
Eckes who had started the first four events of the season inside the top-six but struggled for consistent finishes would have his luck turn around in the Vet Tix Camping World 200.
His [No.18] Safelite Auto Glass Toyota remained fast on the short runs after starting from the pole position.
However, as the laps zoomed by Eckes felt they weren’t as good on the long runs.
“We were really fast on [short] runs,” said Eckes. “I felt like we could run with the best of them for about three or four laps and then for whatever reason we just weren’t good past that.”
Even so, his stage finishes remained consistent, third place in the first stage and sixth as the second stage concluded.
As the fourth race of the season came to an end on [lap 136], he found himself earning his first top-five of the season with a solid third place finish, after a disappointing start to his 2020 campaign.
“Finally, this is a result we can build on — the 22nd, 23rd, and 14th place finishes to start the year definitely hurt,” expressed Eckes. “We finally got it turned around a little bit and we can build on it. Hopefully be two spots better at Homestead.”
Eckes stated post-race the team had been trying to figure out what they could do to earn finishes that were indicative of how they knew they could run each week.
“We kind of had a ‘coming to Jesus’ moment in the conference room this past week just trying to figure out what we could do better,” said Eckes.
“I feel like we’ve done that and we can finally start trending some finishes together. It will be big for momentum and that’s definitely what this sport it all about. To finish third means a lot and it’s definitely a lot harder with a 40-car field now. Third would probably be fifth or sixth in a normal race. I’m really happy to finish here and just looking forward to the next race.”
The focus now turns to Homestead-Miami Speedway next weekend, a track Eckes says is similar to Atlanta.
“I feel like this track is similar grip level wise, you’re always sliding and it’s definitely a tough race track as far as that, just a lack of grip late in the run, but lots of grip in the beginning of the run,” said Eckes. “We struggled in the beginning and finally got some momentum now and hopefully can string together some better finishes.”
Finally a good result for the @safelite @KBMteam. P3 at the end. Fought hard, lots of positives. Still some improvement to be done but closer. Ready for Homestead!
— Christian Eckes (@christianeckes) June 6, 2020