Christian Eckes Earns First Career Victory at Salem with Venturini Motorsports

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Christian Eckes on Fan4Racing Radio, Monday, April 23, 2018, 8:40 pm ET Winner’s Circle Photo – VMS

Christian Eckes is our guest on Fan4Racing NASCAR & Race Talk, Monday, April 23, 2018, at 8:40 pm ET. Call 929-477-1790 or tweet @Fan4RacingSite with any questions or comments during our LIVE broadcast.

Getting the monkey off his back with so many close finishes, Christian Eckes made his way to victory lane after winning an ARCA Racing Series thriller on Sunday afternoon at Salem Speedway.

It was the second win of the season for Venturini Motorsports and for Eckes his first career victory, leaving the young driver in disbelief in Victory Lane.

“I can’t believe this…I really can’t,” says Eckes. “This is the biggest win of my life. This is Salem. It’s so hard to win here. I have no words to describe how relieved I am right now and how much this means to me.”

Driving the No. 15 for Venturini Motorsports, Eckes held off his hard-charging teammate and the race pole-sitter, Chandler Smith for the last 30-laps, bringing the fans in the stand to their feet for the thrilling finish. Both drivers were racing for their first career victory in the ARCA Racing Series.

On the white flag lap, Smith was right behind Eckes as both raced hard into turn one just inches apart. In a split second, bad luck struck Smith with a cut right-front tire sending his No. 20 up the banking and crashing hard into the wall, as Eckes went on to the checkered flag and his first victory. Smith finished in tenth place. Together the two young drivers led 189 laps of the 200-lap event.

Happy for their driver, team owner Billy Venturini shared his thoughts about the victory on Twitter after the race.

Winning two of the first three races this season, Venturini Motorsports is off to a tremendous start of the 2018 season. Michael Self won the season opener at Daytona in February, along with Eckes victory on Sunday. They also have three straight pole awards with Natalie Decker at Daytona and Chandler Smith at Nashville and Salem.

Up next for the ARCA Racing Series is the General Tire 200 at Talladega Superspeedway on Friday afternoon, April 27th. FOX Sports 1 will cover the event along with arcaracing.com with live timing and scoring and their chat feature.