NASCAR insiders react to Christian Eckes, Taylor Gray controversy at Martinsville

The Martinsville weekend began with the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race and Christian Eckes caused a bit of drama. The way he raced Taylor Gray late in a race Eckes didn’t have to win had the Tricon Garage driver and many fans, fuming.

There were a lot of boos raining down from the crowd at Christian Eckes. Taylor Gray earned a lot of fans by the way he handled himself.

On The Teardown, Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic spoke about the controversy.

“This is short track racing, this is what Martinsville’s about, and he didn’t put him in the wall, he moved him out of the way,” Bianchi said to his cohost. “Now you can talk about whether it was a smart move or not, because you just made an enemy, and you don’t need any enemies going into the championship race. At all. And you can talk about how is it more advantageous to have Taylor Gray in the championship race than Ty Majeski? I would argue that it’s actually worse to have Majeski in that race than Taylor Gray.

“So no, the move itself, I don’t [see as dirty]. The move itself was a racing move you see at Martinsville. You’re going for the win, somebody’s in front of you, you’re racing hard, you move him out of the way. He didn’t put him in the wall, he didn’t spin him out, he didn’t do any of the dirty deeds. He just put the bumper to him. Isn’t that what people want? That’s old-school, classic NASCAR. We talk about it all the time when we come to these short tracks.”

Jeff Gluck disagrees about Christian Eckes move on Taylor Gray

The two journalists were split in their view of the Truck Series race. While Bianchi saw it as short track racing, Gluck saw something else.

Perhaps the racing etiquette of 20, 30 years ago is gone. When you see a driver get the lead clean and then get moved, it’s tough.

“What I didn’t like about it is that Taylor Gray had rightfully got himself up to that point on strategy on fresh tires, and he indicated with the way that he was racing Eckes, I’m going to race you cleanly, let’s race this out,” Gluck explained. “By his actions, he wanted to race it out. And as a reward, what he got was sent toward the wall and losing a chance at his first career win and a championship berth at Phoenix.

“Where Eckes had basically decided, ‘I’ve dominated this race, I’m not going to let anybody ruin this race. I’m not going to let you win this race, I’m not going to let Ben Rhodes win this race, nobody is going to win this race and I’m going to make sure it happens.’ Now was it short-sighted? You could say yes. I actually think that he’s protected by the way this format is, because if Taylor Gray tries anything at all at Phoenix, NASCAR’s going to be like ‘You messed with a Championship 4 driver, you cannot wreck a Championship 4,’ anything like that.They’re not going to let that go so his hands are sort of tied.”

So, which side are you on? Was Christian Eckes crossing the line with his actions? This week at Phoenix will tell us how serious this incident was. While short track racing is aggressive, there is a time and place. Maybe Phoenix is the next time and place?