By Seth Eggert, Staff Writer
MARTINSVILLE, VA – Christian Eckes and Todd Gilliland topped the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series NASCAR Hall of Fame 200 practice sessions.
Fresh off of his first ARCA Menards Championship, Eckes topped the speed charts in the Kyle Busch Motorsports No. 51 Sirius XM Toyota Tundra. He was the only driver to break under the 20 second mark with a lap of 19.851 seconds at 95.391 mph.
Playoff Grid driver Ross Chastain was second fastest. Sheldon Creed, Ben Rhodes, and Gilliland rounded out the top-five. The other Playoff Grid drivers were as follows, Stewart Friesen sixth, Matt Crafton seventh, Brett Moffitt 10th, Tyler Ankrum 13th, and Austin Hill 16th.
In the second practice session, Gilliland’s KBM No. 4 Mobil 1 Toyota Tundra topped the chart with his 19.788 seconds at 95.694 mph lap. His KBM teammate Harrison Burton was second fastest. Moffitt, Sauter, and Sam Mayer rounded out the top-five.
“I feel like our truck was okay speed-wise,” Gilliland explained. “We were second most of the practice when everyone was doing race runs, so I didn’t feel like our speed was that far off. We put on new tires, didn’t really do anything special on race runs.
“Then we just right there at the end put on another set of tires for a mock run and it didn’t feel great but it was fast. We’re going to get it feeling a little bit better so I can repeat that same thing tomorrow and hopefully it’s good enough for the pole.”
The other Playoff Grid drivers were Hill ninth, Friesen 10th, Ankrum 11th, Crafton 13th, and Chastain 15th.
There was also a rookie-only practice session for those making their first career Martinsville start.
NASCAR K&N Pro Series East Champion Mayer topped the charts in that session. His best lap of 20.320 seconds at 93.604 mph edged out former NHRA Champion Tanner Gray. Codie Rohrbaugh, Danny Bohn, and Natalie Decker rounded out the top-five.
All three practice sessions were uneventful.
Qualifying for the NASCAR Hall of Fame 200 is on Fox Sports 1 at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, October 25. Coverage for the race begins at 1:00 p.m on Fox Sports 1, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.