After spending the past seven seasons in the NASCAR Truck Series, including the past three as a full-time driver, Christian Eckes received a well-earned promotion to the NASCAR Xfinity Series with Kaulig Racing in 2025.
Things haven't necessarily gone as well as the nine-time Truck winner would have liked them to go so far. He likely faces a must-win situation to get into the playoffs with just four races remaining on the regular season schedule, starting with this Saturday afternoon's race at Watkins Glen International, as he finds himself in 15th in the point standings.
"There have been so many different aspects of the year that I've had to transition to," Eckes told Beyond the Flag, in an interview made possibly by longtime Kaulig Racing partner Celsius.
"Obviously the truck to an Xfinity car has been a little bit different of a jump than I anticipated it to be; not to say that it hasn't gone amazing, but definitely has gone rougher than we probably anticipated.
"So yeah, still learning, still trying to grow and make the organization better, make myself better throughout it all. I know it's been a rocky start for sure; have had some highs and had some lows, but just kind of need to smooth those out and have a little bit more speed here soon."
Those lows include five DNFs and three other finishes outside of the top 20. In a much busier season than he's ever had before, he's had to learn to turn the page on those bad weekends quicker than ever before.
Eckes focused on turning the page, making the playoffs
"Leave things in the past and move on to next week," he said of his biggest lesson learned so far in his rookie season. "That's something I'm not used to in the Truck Series. You know, you go from 23 races to 33, and I think 23 is the most amount of races I've run in 10 years. It's a little bit different in that aspect of just kind of getting over things quicker and moving on to the next week. Just having a shorter memory this year, I guess."
On the flip side, it's not as if he hasn't run well; he has scored three top five finishes and six other top 10 finishes this year, and he believes he is capable of winning one of the two remaining regular season oval races to lock himself into the playoffs.
"I wouldn't say the road courses, but the other two I feel pretty good about," he said. "Daytona, we always have speed with ECR engines, and Kaulig’s always been historically good at the July or August, whatever it is now, Daytona race.
"So I'd say Daytona and then Worldwide Technology Raceway Park I've always been good at in the truck. I think I finished second there three years in a row and should have won a couple before that. I've always been really good there. I'd say those two are definitely our best shot."
Even if he doesn't get into the postseason, he still has his sights set on improvement, and if he can continue to achieve that, he would consider the year a success.
"Constant improvement," Eckes said. "We're definitely not where we should be right now. I feel like we've had some missed opportunities throughout the year, whether it's our fault or not.
"We've had some good speed and haven't been able to get the results. And if we get a couple of those races back, I think we're comfortably in the playoffs. So yeah, just kind of constant improvement from now until the end of the year, just building into the year after will definitely be an improvement for us."
Seeing as how Eckes is a driver who was dropped by Kyle Busch Motorsports after a winless 2020 campaign, found a part-time landing spot at ThorSport Racing in 2021, won a race, and ultimately landed a full-time ride for two years with McAnally-Hilgemann Racing, where he recorded back-to-back four-win seasons, he's shown that ability to improve when given the time to do so; it would certainly be hard to write him off.
As he discussed when talking about the differences between the Truck Series and the Xfinity Series, one of the challenges he's faced this year is the fact that, unlike many other Xfinity Series drivers who previously competed in the Truck Series, he had absolutely no Xfinity Series experience before making his first start of this year at Daytona.
But there are two sides of that coin.
"I would have liked to have kind of done it before this year, for sure, just to know what I was getting myself into," he admitted. "But yeah, I guess you could say it was an advantage in a way of just a clean break, like this is what you got to do and just learn it now. So there's definitely two ways to look at that, but I wish I had a couple before this year for sure."
Of course, Eckes plans to continue to rely on Celsius as he prepares for the big moments ahead of him.
"It was an existing team sponsorship, so obviously I was super fortunate to become partners with Kaulig Racing and Celsius at the same time," he said. "It's been great so far. Been able to do a lot of cool things both on and off the race track, and hopefully it's a partnership for years to come.
"I've always been a fan of the Orange Celsius, for sure – I'm pretty boring in that aspect! I'm just an Orange fan – I mean, they're all good, but I like to keep it simple and just roll with the Orange."
The fact that he was a big fan of the drink even before moving to Matt Kaulig's team made it an even better fit, and the fact that Celsius has absolutely skyrocketed from "small fridge to superpower" over the past couple seasons makes him additionally grateful.
"It was definitely a few years ago," he said of when he first became familiar with the brand. "I'm not 100% sure the exact time, but yeah, no, it's definitely blown up over the last couple years. So yeah, like I said, it's just awesome to be with them for sure. ... To get the partnership and sponsorship at the same time after already being a fan was definitely a cool surprise."
But even he'll admit it: he probably drinks too much of it.
"Too often, for sure!" he stated. "I'll have one every morning and then I try not to have too much caffeine during the race or during the day of the race, but mostly just in the morning to get me out of bed."
Though Kaulig Racing also have a Cup team, and they occasionally run a third Cup car, Eckes isn't focused on making that jump just yet.
"I'm just strictly focused on Xfinity right now," he said. "We have a big task ahead of us trying to get into the playoffs. We're not completely out of it yet, but definitely behind. That's been my number one priority the last two months, three months."
But that doesn't mean he has ruled it out completely.
"Definitely open to it in the future."
Saturday's Mission 200 at The Glen is set to be shown live on the CW Network from Watkins Glen International starting at 3:00 p.m. ET. Start a free trial of FuboTV and don't miss it!