NASCAR Chevy Trucks Lag In 2024 Championship Race: Video

NASCAR Chevy Silverado RST racers made up half of the Championship 4 heading into the Truck Series race at Phoenix Raceway on November 9^th, 2024, but they just couldn’t seal the deal as a Ford F-150 left them in the dust.

Christian Eckes, driver of the No. 19 NASCAR Chevy Silverado, was one of the winningest drivers in the division this year with four victories under his belt in 2024. He qualified fourth and hung out around P3 for most of the race, tailing the No. 98 F-150 of Ty Majeski and the No. 11 Toyota TRD Tundra of Corey Heim. However, he was unable to lead any laps during Friday’s race, despite the fact that his truck was fast enough to recover from restarting 16^th after a late-race caution.

“I feel like I had to abuse the tires to make the moves that I was doing,” Eckes said in a postrace press conference. “Eventually just ran out, but I felt like the tires kind of equalized there to a certain degree because of the vehicle that we had versus the 11 [Heim] and 98 [Majeski].”

Grant Enfinger, driver of the No. 9 NASCAR Chevy, shared a similar sentiment. He finished fifth, the worst of the Championship 4 drivers, after only leading two laps.

“Yeah, I mean, pretty much I was in the same boat there,” Enfinger said. “We could go for a little bit, but at the end of the day the trucks that were better than us finished in front of us. The new tires were good for the restart and kind of made you be able to easily pass the trucks that you were better than anyway. But it was only like five laps’ difference on tires. If there had been more than that, maybe they showed up more in the long run.”

Majeski went on to win the race, securing the Truck Series championship for Ford team ThorSport.

# – Rookie
i – Points ineligible
* – Part-time driver
P – Playoffs eligible