BRISTOL, Tenn. — Christian Eckes and Corey Heim made contact battling for the lead late in Friday’s Craftsman Truck Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway, sparking a heavy multi-truck crash and ending a chance at history.
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At Lap 179, Heim passed Eckes in Turns 3 and 4 using his bumper, and in the following set of corners, Eckes made contact with Heim’s right-rear fender, sending the No. 1 Tricon Garage Toyota into the wall. Kaden Honeycutt — the polesitter — had nowhere to go, piling into his teammate, Heim. Front Row Motorsports’ Layne Riggs and Cup Series regular Chase Briscoe were also involved.
After the race, Eckes took responsibility for the incident.
“Obviously, it wasn’t intentional to spin him or even hit him,” Eckes said after the race. “I was just trying to get in line and misjudged it, and he ended up wrecking pretty hard. I feel pretty small right now about that. I wanted to get behind him to race him and maybe repay the favor, but obviously, had no intention of getting into him and spinning him like that. Just feel terrible about that, for sure.”
Heim, the defending series champion and a part-time competitor in 2026, was looking to become the first driver to sweep all three Triple Truck Challenge races. He won three weeks ago at Darlington Raceway, and last weekend at Rockingham Speedway, he took the victory in dominant fashion.
In a bit of a twist, the frustrations that often come with Bristol weren’t apparent for Heim, and he understood the contact from Eckes, regardless of the intent.
“Just got hooked a little bit there,” Heim said. “I think I was trying to maintain the lead. Everyone kind of knew, based on the way the race was playing out, that we needed to lead, so kind of gave Christian a nudge to get that, and I believe he just misjudged it trying to get back in line and do the same to me, which would have been totally fine considering I’d just done it to him. Giving him the benefit of the doubt that he misjudged it, I think I’m all good. It’s just kind of, you know, crap happens, and kind of move on from it.”
Honeycutt entered Friday night’s contest as the co-points leader alongside Heim. His night ended with the wreck, ending a streak of three consecutive top-five runs going back to St. Petersburg.
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“I don’t really know what in the world those two were doing,” Honeycutt said of Eckes and Heim’s mischief out front. “But definitely trickled down to us and a couple other trucks. Unfortunately, history repeated itself, and they got into it, and it’s an unfortunate doing for sure.
“I never actually saw the contact, but when I saw the 91 shoot up, I figured Christian just didn’t blow the corner on purpose. I was assuming that the 1 hit him, but I wasn’t really sure. But yeah, I guess he got into him again on that restart. Corey is an amazing race-car driver. I’m not going to say it was his fault, but I think they both could have done definitely something different to not have that situation escalate with so many laps left in the race like that.”
Heim and Eckes competed against each other on a full-time basis in the Truck Series from 2023 to 2024. Eckes, driving for McAnally-Hilgemann Racing, briefly moved to the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series last year for Kaulig Racing before moving back to trucks this season. The two had a run-in in 2024 at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park as they were in the mix for the championship.
But Friday night, two of the most dominant Truck Series drivers over the last several seasons departed Bristol empty-handed.
Eckes finished fifth after leading a race-high 132 laps, but moved up two spots in points to fifth.
Front Row Motorsports’ Chandler Smith retook the Truck Series points lead from both Heim and Honeycutt after the incident, and on top of dropping the points lead and a totaled Toyota Tundra, there will be no “Half-Million-Dollar Heim” to close out the Triple Truck Challenge.
“That sucks, for sure,” Eckes admitted. “They deserve to win half a million bucks today, and I took that away from them.”