Christian Eckes Seeking First Superspeedway Victory
ARCA Menards Series championship contender Christian Eckes (No.15 JBL Audio Toyota) makes his return to the Tricky Triangle as the series heads northeast for Friday’s General Tire #AnywhereIsPossible200 at Pocono Raceway.
Eckes, a native of nearby Middletown, New York, grew up just over an hour away from the famed 2.5-mile superspeedway. This week’s attempt, the eighth tour stop of the season, will mark his third start at the famed Pennsylvania track. The 18-year old has two top-15 finishes at Pocono with a career-best 11th place finish last season during his track debut.
“Pocono has always been a place I’ve enjoyed going to,” said Eckes. “Being almost a ‘Home Race’ for me it’s pretty cool to have my whole family out to watch. The race track itself has been super fun, we haven’t gotten the results we deserved in our two attempts but we’re here to change that this week. Everybody on the JBL team has been working really hard, we’re ready to take the triangle head on!”
Eckes will carry the General Tire onboard camera for this week’s FOX Sports broadcast.
Currently fourth in the standings, 115-points behind series leader and teammate Michael Self, Eckes is coming off a seventh-place finish last week at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Already a multi-race winner, Eckes is eager to pick up his first superspeedway victory. Eckes’ previous wins, all on short tracks, came at Salem Speedway, Springfield, Lucas Oil Raceway and earlier this year at the Fairgrounds Speedway Nashville.
With 33-career ARCA Series starts to his credit, the Toyota Racing Development (TRD) driver is a four-time tour winner with 14 top-5 and 23 top-10 finishes since 2016. He is also a 3-time General Tire Pole Award winner.
Closing out the month of May in the Pocono Mountains, Eckes and his Venturini Motorsports/JBL Audio team will enter June with four consecutive race weekends back in the Midwest starting at Michigan International Speedway, Madison International Speedway, Gateway Motorsports Park and finally Chicagoland Speedway before their next break in the action.
Prior to Friday’s race, Christian Eckes will join his VMS teammates Michael Self, Harrison Burton and Hailie Deegan at the Fan Stage (2:00-2:30PM EDT.) located on the outside of the track behind the grandstand area for an exclusive Pocono Raceway Kids Club appearance.
VMS driver development history at Pocono Raceway. In 2009, Joey Logano became Venturini Motorsports’ first development driver to win at Pocono Raceway. Brennan Poole handed VMS their only other track win in 2012. Poole had four career ARCA poles at Pocono over five starts. Frank Kimmel, ARCA’s all-time race winner with 80-victories, earned his 45th career pole at Pocono driving for VMS in 2015.
Weekend track and broadcast schedule. Practice for the General Tire 150 starts Friday, May 31 at 9 am ET, followed by General Tire Pole Qualifying at 12 noon. The race is scheduled to start at 5:45 pm ET and will be televised live on FOX SPORTS 2 with a same day replay on FOX SPORTS 1 at 8 pm ET.
Sources: Venturini Motorsports PR