By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
The Craftsman Truck Series elimination night at Martinsville Speedway exploded with drama on the closing restart with five laps to go.
As Christian Eckes was looking to cap off a remarkably dominant performance, leading 187 of 200 laps, a late attack by Taylor Gray put that into question.
With a Championship 4 spot on the table for Gray, the No. 17 TRICON Garage Toyota burst to the lead before Eckes’ No. 19 crossed over and laid the bumper.
Gray was sent to the third lane, dropping the driver to fourth spot. More importantly, out of the Championship 4 next week in Phoenix.
Moments after exiting the truck, Gray marched to the frontstretch mock Victory Lane to confront Eckes.
“The No. 19, we all knew was the class of the field,” Gray said. “Just because Martinsville is known as a bump-and-run place, it doesn’t mean you ship them to the fence.
“He wants to be a snarky brat and say, ‘Oh, that’s Martinsville.’ Ok, I get that. But you don’t run people to the fence. People has taken that way out of hand.”
Gray’s rush to the front was by design. The No. 17 crew opted to pit for fresh tires before the late run of yellows, putting Gray on the front foot when it mattered most.
“It’s not my fault that we had a better strategy than they did,” he said. “We came out on tires, drove through the field and we drove to him, I raced him clean… and he drove me in the fence. I guess the only other thing I could have done was just plain out wrecked him like he did me.”
According to Gray, the two have had less dramatic run-ins throughout the 2024 campaign. And while Eckes scored his fourth win of the year, Gray was looking for career win No. 1.
“I just said to him, ‘I raced you clean all race long, I’ve never moved you or done anything to you. You raced me dirty multiple times this year and you just did it again.”
With one more race on the Trucks calendar, Gray knows where he could have been better to have had a greater chance at his first championship.
“We needed to have better consistency in the playoffs,” he said. “We shouldn’t have been in a must-win tonight, we should have been better than that.”