Christian Eckes embarks on Truck Series 'revenge tour' with McAnally-Hilgemann Racing

The way Christian Eckes’ 2024 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season ended left a sour taste in his mouth. He won four times and finished outside the top 10 just once, but it resulted in another championshipless campaign.

With a NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series promotion in tow, Eckes promised himself that he’d never drive another Truck race unless it came for Bill McAnally.

So far, he’s held to his word.

After a one-year stint with Kaulig Racing, Eckes is back at McAnally-Hilgemann Racing in 2026 with goals as big as ever. And yes, he kept his receipts.

RELATED: Christian Eckes driver page | Texas weekend schedule

“We kind of felt like we got screwed out of a championship [in 2024] after being the most consistent all year long and scoring a lot of points, breaking records, doing everything we needed to do, and then just finishing third at Phoenix,” Eckes told NASCAR.com. “It’s kind of like a revenge tour in that respect — to show that I’m still talented and can still do the things that I want to do, like win races.”

Eckes went toe-to-toe with Corey Heim over a thrilling 2024 season, but ultimately, Ty Majeski defeated both of them for his first series title. The Middletown, New York, native won nine times since 2021, which, unsurprisingly, earned him a ride in the O’Reilly Series. His rookie voyage didn’t start according to plan, ranking 18th in points through the first 14 races, but the 25-year-old climbed as high as 13th in points over the summer.

But around the same time, Eckes started to hear the internal noise.

Kaulig announced a partnership with Ram in the Truck Series, which meant at least a temporary end for the organization’s O’Reilly Series program. Not long after, Eckes got the ball rolling again with MHR.

“I called Bill [McAnally] on a random night and was like, ‘hey, what do you think about this? Is this an opportunity?”” Eckes explained. “He just told me ‘yes, for sure, and we’re going to make it happen.’

“I hadn’t really driven anything else over the last 10 years, almost, so to get to experience the O’Reilly Series and get to experience a new team, a new situation, a bigger team that I hadn’t really gotten in the past was definitely worth it … I have nothing but respect for the Kaulig guys. Really enjoyed my time there. I felt like I grew a lot while I was there as a person and as a driver. I definitely got better throughout the entire experience, but I have always felt like Bill McAnally Racing is home to me, and wanted to get back to winning and competing and being around that environment.”

While most of MHR’s leadership has remained the same, Eckes returns to the Statesville, North Carolina, shop with a brand new crew. Daniel Hemric occupies his No. 19 Chevrolet from years past, so the organization tapped Eckes for the No. 91 entry and hired veteran crew chief Dave Elenz, who forged his own unique path in 2025, to lead the foray.

A two-time O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champion, Elenz moved to the Cup Series in 2022, calling the shots for Erik Jones at Legacy Motor Club. He won the Southern 500 with Jones as a rookie Cup crew chief, but just two years later, Elenz and Jones parted ways amid a career-worst 2024 season, and he stepped away from the industry.

Now 45 years old, Elenz took nearly eight months off before accepting a position with a flowforming company in the Boston suburbs. He commuted weekly from North Carolina, but returned home on the weekends to spend time with family — something he couldn’t do as a Cup crew chief. Elenz originally hoped to stay in NASCAR for the 2025 season and had conversations with McAnally about a position, but the stars aligned a year later for a can’t-miss opportunity with Eckes in the Truck Series.

christian eckes in the nascar craftsman truck series

“[Bill] was pretty excited about Christian coming back, and obviously, they had a good history,” Elenz told NASCAR.com. “When Charles [Denike, former crew chief] was here, they had very fast [trucks] and lots of wins. And that part was exciting to me. I know Christian is capable of winning; I know Bill’s doing it. And the aspect of Saturdays and Sundays at home is big for me, and I could be competitive and still have a chance to see my family.

“You get to work and touch more areas of the vehicle than what you can on the Cup side. Sometimes, it’s nice not to be in meetings all day and actually get to go out and work on race cars, because that’s actually what we love to do, and that’s kind of why we all started, was to work on race cars. On the Cup side, there’s so many people involved, and you have to be so good at every level that it just ends up that you don’t get to see the race car as much, and it’s harder for one individual to contribute to that difference. So that’s been exciting for me to get back to touching, feeling, working on the race car and seeing my results make a difference.”

And so far, it’s admittedly been a mixed bag for Eckes and Elenz. They finished third in the season opener at Daytona, but eight days later, a mechanical issue put them behind the wall at EchoPark just two laps into the 125-lap timed contest. In races at St. Petersburg and Rockingham, the 91 team never contended and finished outside the top 10.

The last time the Truck Series raced, however, all the ingredients finally came together. Eckes paced a race-high 132 laps and won the opening stage at Bristol, but after contact with Heim while battling for the Triple Truck Challenge payday, he faded back to fifth in the final stint.

That said, Eckes is still fifth in points, only 17 markers behind series leader Chandler Smith.

“Bristol was kind of what I anticipate us being able to be capable of,” Eckes said. “If it stays green, [we were in] a really good position to win, which I feel like this team is capable of doing on a weekly basis. So we’re moving in the right direction. There’s things that I need to clean up, there’s things that Dave needs to clean up — as a whole, our group needs to clean up, but we’re heading in the right direction.

“The 91 team, in general, is extremely dangerous if we can have a perfect day, and not perfect, but have a good day. But those are kind of at a 50% rate right now. If you look at three of the races where we ran top five, won stages and led laps, did everything we needed to, we combined to get 150 points, but the other three, we only have 40 points [combined]. So just consistency, more than anything, is something that we’re lacking … once we do that on a consistent basis, I feel very good about the state of the 91 team.”

MORE: Truck Series schedule | Truck Series standings

With the Truck Series returning to action Friday at Texas Motor Speedway (8 p.m. ET, FS1, NRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), it begins six consecutive weeks of racing for the tailgaters. Next week is a trip to the twists and turns of Watkins Glen International before visiting Dover Motor Speedway for the first time since 2020. Afterward, it’s a home game at Charlotte Motor Speedway — the final 1.5-mile race of the regular season.

This upcoming stretch of races, as Elenz explains, closely mimics tracks featured in The Chase, the new postseason format that will deliver a champion come November. He believes that success over the month and a half will answer whether the 91 team is truly a title contender.

“This six-race stretch is going to be very telling for us,” Elenz said. “If we’re successful through this, it makes the summertime easier than trying to get a little bit better going into the final stretch. But if we struggle through this, we’re going to have a lot of work to do, and we’re going to have to find speed.

“It’s a lot of good tracks for Christian, it’s good tracks for McAnally Racing. So I look forward to the success that we’re going to have, but yeah, I think it’s ultra important for us to be able to win the (regular season). We’re in a hole right now, we need to gain points through it, and this [stretch] is going to tell where our speed is at and what areas we’re going to have to work on to be in the championship at the end of the year.”

And with Eckes back at a place he calls home, the sky is the limit.

“I’m working as hard as I’ve ever worked, plus some, to try to win and get back what I feel my standard is: winning races, winning poles, winning stages, leading laps and then inevitably winning a championship,” he said. “We have some work to do to get where I want to be in that equation, but we’re getting closer every week.”

Read the full article here