Kyle Busch’s Truck Series Crew Chief Bashes NASCAR’s Major Shortcoming in Bristol After Cup Series ‘Tiregate’

The 2024 Cup race at Bristol caught Kyle Busch off-guard, as tire strategy ruled the game. But the driver harnessed his mojo and talents on a marvelous run at the Craftsman Truck Series over the weekend. Busch dominated 104 laps until a tough contender, his former pupil, came close to his side.

Christian Eckes used to train under Busch at KBM, but this time his master was his rival. The race became a two-man show, with Busch and Eckes fighting it out for the lead. But slight technical blemishes pulled Busch away from the victory, as his crew chief recently claimed.

Outdated tires stole a glorious outcome from Kyle Busch

Kyle Busch is a Bristol dominator, holding 22 victories under his name including five Truck wins. However, the 250-lap Weather Guard Truck race on Saturday turned out different for him. Christian Eckes led a race-high 144 laps. Busch tried to outsmart Eckes in the last 20 laps but eventually ran out of time, the latter beating him to the finish by .141-of-a-second.

The battle might look like a game of sheer speed and strategy. However, according to Spire Motorsports’ crew chief, other factors also mattered. Brian Pattie fielded Busch’s No. 7 Truck and recently pointed out a flaw that prevented Kyle Busch from performing as well as he usually does.

“I struggle with how we get to that spot right. I’m not in NASCAR mediums…doesn’t matter to me, I’m a racer…But I don’t understand how we get to this point, where we all have different date codes. I get it, probably money. But you know what, they still charge us the full price. I think we need to sit down as an industry and fix it.”

Pattie further said that given newer tires, Kyle Busch would have fared better in Bristol. “You know I probably would have pitted another time during the event, you know, toward the end of the race if I had new date codes. I think we could have made our truck better and tires would have mattered, I think. Because at that point we were just sitting in the dust, and I wasn’t gonna pit for stickers and requalify, restart on old date codes. This doesn’t make sense to me.”

Despite the date codes’ setback, Kyle Busch fought tooth and nail to secure the first place. At one point, he implemented a clever plan. Busch let Eckes go on lap 159, expecting the No. 19 to burn his tires up. This almost worked until another car spun out and caused a restart. Then Eckes recharged and ran to Victory Lane.

Christian Eckes was ecstatic upon robbing his former teacher of his victory call.

Eckes waxed euphoric upon snatching the Truck win

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Kyle Busch and Christian Eckes go way back. However, in the Bristol Truck race, they were fighting like old rivals. They made contact on lap 154. Busch’s truck hit Eckes’ ride from the side and caused minor damage to the front right. But both pushed on undeterred.

“It’s always huge to win against Kyle and especially at Bristol, this is his home, to beat him here is pretty awesome,” Eckes said. “He had a hell of a save there when we were battling, it was just hard racing. I had a lot of fun. I was a little concerned about the right front damage and I slid pretty hard and had to gather it up. After that, I just had to cool the tires down and it was OK.”

Kyle Busch may have lost his chances at Bristol. But the rest of the 2024 season is still left for the driver to show what he does best.

Read More: Kyle Busch’s Former Crew Chief Snubs KBM as He Reveals the “Best Place” He’s Ever Worked in NASCAR