Christian Eckes, the most recent winner in the ARCA Racing Series, has landed a four-race deal with Kyle Busch Motorsports in the Camping World Truck Series.
Eckes, 17, won Sunday’s race at Salem Speedway while driving for Bill Venturini. The win came in his 16th start in the series.
The native of Middletown, New York, will make his Truck Series debut June 16 at Iowa Speedway in KBM’s No. 46 Toyota. He will drive it again on June 23 at Gateway Motorsports Park, Oct. 27 at Martinsville and Nov. 9 at ISM Raceway.
“The opportunity to compete for Kyle Busch Motorsports in my NASCAR Camping World Truck Series debut is a dream come true -- my first chance to get behind the wheel of the No. 46 Tundra can’t get here soon enough,” Eckes said in a press release. “I can’t thank everybody at Toyota Racing, Mobil 1 and all of my supporters enough for making this possible.”
In 2017, Eckes collected four top five and nine top-10 finishes in 10 ARCA events and four top five and five top-10 finishes in six CARS Super Late Model Tour starts.
In December 2016, Eckes won the Snowball Derby Super Late Model race at Five Flags Speedway in a narrow finish over John Hunter Nemechek.
Cody Glick, who oversees KBM’s Super Late Model program, will serve as Eckes’ crew chief in his four starts. Glick earned his first career Truck Series victory in Kyle Busch’s win from the pole at Bristol Motor Speedway last year.
This is something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. Big thanks to @ToyotaRacing and @Mobil1 for making this possible! I’m super excited and ready to get to work 💪 https://t.co/cy8ALhCPJL
— Christian Eckes (@christianeckes) April 26, 2018