Corey Heim and Christian Eckes enjoy some separation from the rest of the field as the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series enters its seven-race postseason. Between them, the two drivers have won half of the regular-season races, and they sit 1-2 in the reseeded points — Heim first as a five-time winner with a stockpile of playoff points, and Eckes tucked behind him as a three-time victor but with a bonus points haul as the Regular Season Champion.
A third driver’s recent surge has made it a trio at the top, and for Ty Majeski, there’s extra motivation in opening the playoffs strong.
NASCAR playoffs season officially gets underway this weekend as the Craftsman Truck Series heads to The Milwaukee Mile for Sunday’s Liuna! 175 (4 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM). It’s anybody’s race among the 10-driver field, but Majeski has some serious headway as the winner of the series’ last two races (Indianapolis Raceway Park, Richmond). The setting for Sunday’s first playoff race of 2024 also holds some home-state appeal.
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Majeski hails from Seymour, Wisconsin — just outside of Green Bay and nearly a two-hour drive north from Milwaukee. So while there’s some sentimental value in keeping his performance rolling in front of a partisan home crowd, the 30-year-old driver of the No. 98 ThorSport Racing Ford is still aiming to thrust his name into the conversation with Heim and Eckes as title favorites when the season concludes Nov. 8 at Phoenix Raceway.
“I think we’re one of those top three contenders for sure, especially coming off these two wins,” Majeski said during Tuesday’s rounds of media interviews at Craftsman Truck Series Media Day. “I think we’re probably carrying the most momentum in the series right now. I feel like maybe our valleys have been a little bit lower than the 19 (Eckes) and the 11 (Heim), but I feel like our peaks have been similar, so as long as we can just peak at the right time and keep this momentum going, there’s no reason why we can’t be a competitor when we get to Phoenix, hopefully. So I feel good about where we’re at. Our team is in a really good spot, working really well together right now. Obviously, coming off two wins is a huge deal. Our 98 team always seems to peak right about playoff time, so yeah, we’re ready for another good playoff run.”
Heim, Eckes and Majeski are all returning drivers to the postseason field, and Heim enters as the No. 1 seed on the grid for the second consecutive year. The rest of the field includes three first-time playoff qualifiers in Rajah Caruth, Daniel Dye and Taylor Gray, and other returning vets in two-time and defending champion Ben Rhodes, and multi-time qualifiers Tyler Ankrum, Grant Enfinger and Nick Sanchez.
Heim, 22, made the Championship 4 field last season and started from the pole position in the Phoenix finale before his race unraveled in a bumping contest with fellow title contender Carson Hocevar. He returned this year to the No. 11 Tricon Garage team and has already doubled his career win total in the regular season. He’s been in near-lockstep with Eckes, who is in his second year with the McAnally-Hilgemann Racing No. 19 group and who he perceives as one of his most formidable foes in the seven races ahead.
“I think the 19 has been really good. Especially in the last few weeks, he’s been putting up a lot of points,” Heim says. “It kind of reminds me of my season last year, where he may not have gotten the wins that he may have deserved throughout the year, but they’ve been just lights-out consistent and in contention every single week. I feel like we’ve been really good, too. We’ve had our good days and we’ve had our great days, and our good days are typically right around the top five, and our great days we typically can lead a lot of laps and win the race. So I think for us, it’s just about making all of our days great days in the playoffs. We’ve only got two rounds, and it all goes by pretty quick. They’ve kind of already checked that box, as long as they keep it going. I think we’ve got maybe a little bit of work to do to make sure every single race is great.”
Eckes’ consistency this year has been noteworthy. The 23-year-old ace has registered top-three finishes in each of the last five races, and his regular-season record reflects that he’s finished among the top 10 in all but one of the 16 events so far.
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The sticking point for Eckes has been clearing a nagging hurdle to reach the final four, and he’s come agonizingly close the last two seasons. In a bitter irony, his title eligibility had already expired when he won last year’s Phoenix finale. Asked what would be key to reaching the championship-race goal, Eckes managed some self-deprecating laughter.
“Not choke in the Round of 8? That’s a fair assessment,” Eckes cracked. “I’ve done that the last two years, so yeah, just execution. That’s our biggest thing is just to work on is execution. I feel like we’ve done a better job of being consistent in executing this year, so I feel like we’re more than capable to go do it. We’ve just got to go do it.”
Only one former champion is in the postseason field: Rhodes, who qualified as the ninth of 10 drivers. The ThorSport racer’s statistics have sagged this year, and he’s aiming to extend his streak to five consecutive seasons with a win in the races that remain. A factor that stokes his optimism is his experience; this season marks his seventh playoff appearance, the most of any title-eligible driver.
“Just the fact that we’ve done it. I think that’s going to tell us we can do it again, and I don’t mean that rude in any way, it’s just that we have the blueprint,” said Rhodes, who reached the 200-start milestone earlier this year. “We’ve done it twice, and we’ve done it when our backs’ been against the wall. We’ve done it when we’ve had to get in on tiebreakers, where we had to do crazy strategy, and we’d get in on a point. We’ve been put through the crucible, we’ve gone through the wringer, and somehow we’ve found a way to still make it to the next round. So I can thoroughly say the pressure doesn’t get to us at all. If we make any mistakes, it’ll just be from sheer incompetence, not from nervousness or feeling any sort of pressure. I can say at the race track now, I feel pretty locked in with all of my guys.”
Enfinger joins Heim and Rhodes as drivers with a shot at returning to the Championship 4 field. Enfinger finished one spot behind eventual champ Rhodes in last year’s curtain-closer at Phoenix, and he’s back in the playoff rotation with a new team this season in CR7 Motorsports.
Enfinger, 39, was a bit slow out of the gates in his first handful of races with the No. 9 Chevrolet group, but since mid-May, the team’s performance has clicked. The Alabama native has top-five finishes in five of the last seven events, including the last three races to close out the regular season. Plus, Enfinger heads to Milwaukee as the defending race winner.
“I think there’s probably more of a confidence level from how our team has performed this middle third of the season,” Enfinger says. “As a driver, you always have tracks that fit your driving style or whatnot. As drivers, our job is to be good at every track we go to, right? But there’s certain ones that just kind of fit your style, and I feel like definitely Milwaukee fits my driving style, so I’m excited from that standpoint. But so much just evolved so quickly in our series and at this level of racing, the advances are continuous. I don’t know if we took everything identical to what we had last year, I don’t know if that would win the race this year. But definitely, from a driver’s standpoint, I’m looking forward to the place.”