Saturday night gave birth to another rising star’s success in Late Model Stock Car racing as 14-year-old Christian Eckes scored his first career win in the first of two Late Model races at Caraway Speedway in Sophia, North Carolina.
“It gives me a lot of confidence,” Eckes said about the victory. “I’m just happy I’ve learned this quickly how the car works and how to run a car like that. This feels really good to finally do good because we’ve had a lot of bad luck at Caraway and at the CARS race. It’s good to be running good and bring home the win.”
As he crossed the line to score his first career win, the first thought that came into his mind was a bet he made with his father.
“My dad made a bet with me, if I won the race, that I could fly home first class. That made me pretty happy. That flight was pretty good.”
Eckes has been running at Caraway Speedway and Hickory Motor Speedway (Newton, North Carolina). He also has a start in the CARS Late Model Stock Tour and has plans to race more in CARS as well as at Caraway and Hickory.
“We’ve run some at Hickory and planning on running the final CARS Tour race at Hickory too. Just Hickory and Caraway right now on the schedule.”
Eckes, who will race again on May 20th at Hickory Motor Speedway, hopes to race in NASCAR sometime in the next five years or so.
