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By NAPA
Christian Eckes vaulted himself back into championship contention with a stout effort at Bristol Motor Speedway on Friday night. The driver of the No. 91 Columbia Bank Chevrolet Silverado RST finished fifth, earned a stage victory and scored the most points of all drivers with 48. Eckes paced the field for 132 of the 250 circuits which helped him advance to fifth in the championship standings, just 17 markers out of the lead.
The Columbia Bank Chevrolet started second after Eckes delivered his best qualifying effort of the year, narrowly missing out on the pole by 0.02 seconds. On lap three, Eckes swiftly claimed control of the event by hooking the bottom of the speedway and held a comfortable lead for 62 of 65 laps in Stage 1. He efficiently navigated lapped traffic to secure his second stage victory of the season and pocketed 10 championship points on lap 65.
In an effort to preserve critical track position, crew chief Dave Elenz elected to keep Eckes on track during the stage caution, along with most lead-lap competitors. When the race restarted on lap 79, Eckes jumped out to another lead and reported his handling had moderately improved from the first segment. He held the lead until a caution on lap 118 flipped the race’s script. Eckes pitted for four tires, as did the majority of the field, but restarted eighth on lap 128 after multiple trucks stayed out on older tires. He was able to regain two positions to run sixth by the end of Stage 2 on lap 130 and tally five points.
Eckes stayed on track to begin the final segment and restarted third on lap 142. A sequence of three cautions over the next 25 laps featured mad scrambles on restarts amongst the top four as Eckes vied to retake the lead. After briefly claiming the lead on the lap-179 restart, Eckes and the No. 1 truck made contact racing for the lead, sparking a multi-truck incident in Turn 1, which he narrowly escaped. He restarted as the leader on lap 179, but a loose balance would eventually hamper his pace over the final 27 laps. Eckes took the checkered flag in fifth for his third top-five result of the year and his second-highest point total of the season.
“It was a step in the right direction for sure,” Eckes said. “I think we led the most laps, had the fastest lap, so we’re bringing fast trucks. Qualified second. Qualifying has been kind of an issue for us for the last couple weeks. I feel like we’re heading in the right direction on there. Just need to clean up a lot of mistakes on my end. I lost the handling a little bit and track position is so important. I just screwed up the restart pretty bad and screwed up the restart before then. Lot of mental decisions I got to make better and we’ll make them at Texas.”
Start / Finish: 2 / 5
Points Standing / Total: 5th / 191 pts. (-17)
Next Race: Friday, May 1, Texas Motor Speedway
How to Watch or Listen: 8:00 p.m. ET on FS1 or SiriusXM
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By Counterman
Some things are just easier than others in this life. When it comes to parts, we all have those lookups that test our patience, leave us shaking our heads, or make us wonder why we even got out of bed this morning.
Beginning with the basic identification of the vehicle, we are often reliant on our customer to know what they are ordering parts for. Model year may differ from the actual manufacture date appearing on the door tag, or the door may not even be original to the vehicle, skewing the results of a VIN-based parts search. Many manufacturers offer “carryover” models concurrent with a newly-released platform, creating confusion between models and leaving us to figure out the easiest or most obvious ways to identify each design. Yes, I’m looking at YOU, Silverado, Ram and Wrangler!
Other times, it’s the similarities in model names that can lead to confusion. Side by side, no one would ever confuse a Corvette with a Chevette, but click the wrong button in a catalog, and you may be halfway through the lookup before you realize something doesn’t look quite right. Those of us who remember the overlapping Ford Bronco and Bronco II models of the 1980s and ‘90s, or even the Explorer, Explorer Sport and Sport-tracs of the early 2000s can relate to the renewed confusion caused by today’s Bronco and Bronco Sport models. If I never hear the phrase “I dunno, I think it just says Bronco,” it will still be too soon!
Once we’ve positively identified the actual vehicle, we must still navigate the minefield of misnamed components and vague descriptions common to a catalog system engineered to accommodate multiple manufacturers who can never seem to agree on naming conventions. Toe links, lateral links, tension struts, and trailing arms might all fall under the broad category of “control arm.” I still have flashbacks about trying to specify Audi/VW multi-link suspension components when they first became popular. What do you mean you want the “left-front-upper-rear” control arm, sir?
Occasionally, a customer-induced curveball can really throw off your rhythm, but don’t underestimate the power of your own foolishness, either. I absolutely KNOW my left from my right (its written on my mittens, after all…) but I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve flubbed this basic request, and I do still get the odd customer who asks “you mean when I’m looking at the car, or sitting in it?” I also learned to specify “left and right” rather than “driver and passenger” after getting burned by a string of right-hand drive Jeeps owned by rural mail carriers.
No matter the vehicle and no matter the request, our greatest asset as parts specialists will always be our attention to detail. It begins with listening to our customer rather than just hearing them, and taking notes while we absorb the information they are presenting to us.
Our second greatest asset is our curiosity. We all like learning, knowing and understanding things, but when a situation does become confusing or unclear, it is always better to ask questions than to assume you’ll figure it out alone. We are here to solve problems; to find answers and we do that best when applying our unique skillset for the benefit of all. Engaging with the customer is a means of including them in the solution, one you are both equally invested in reaching.
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By NAPA
Ron Capps and the
link hidden, please login to view Funny Car team turned chaos into a commanding victory Sunday afternoon at the NHRA Arizona Nationals at Firebird Motorsports Park. The three-time world champion overcame a rocky start in qualifying and bounced back from an engine explosion in the quarterfinals to earn his 78th career national event Wally and his 10th since becoming a team owner in 2022. The veteran wheelman set low E.T. of all four elimination rounds, including the final, where he defeated second-year driver Spencer Hyde. Capps is now ranked third in the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series Funny Car points standings.
Capps’ weekend began with adversity in qualifying as he smoked the tires in both Friday sessions and went into Saturday outside the 16-car field. Crew chief Dean ‘Guido’ Antonelli mastered the third session, guiding Capps to a 4.023-second pass at 317.79 mph to move into the top half of the field. It was also the second-quickest performance of the round, landing Capps two bonus points. Like almost every other Funny Car driver, Capps’ machine lost traction early in the fourth session and he locked in the No. 7 position for Sunday eliminations.
Capps kicked off race day in a big way, as he left first against three-time NHRA Heritage Series Nostalgia Funny Car champion Jason Rupert and set low E.T. of the round with a 3.980-second pass at 323.19 mph to advance. Capps then led wire-to-wire in his second-round match against Daniel Wilkerson, winning with a 4.144 E.T. to Wilkerson’s 4.157 E.T. But just as Capps crossed the finish line, a massive engine explosion split his Funny Car body in half and sent him into the wall. The incident was eerily similar to the one Capps suffered at this race one year ago, but he managed to scuff the wall, saving the chassis. The NAPA Auto Care team thrashed to rebuild the car fitted with a spare body and made it to the ready line just in time for a semifinal race against defending event winner Paul Lee. The two drivers left the starting line together before Capps pulled ahead to win with a 4.124-second pass at 303.09 mph.
Capps went into the final round with lane choice over No. 1 qualifier Spencer Hyde. The NAPA Auto Care Funny Car led the way from starting line to finish line, posting another 4.124 E.T. at 303.23 mph for the win. It was Capps’ 77th Funny Car win and fourth at Phoenix, but this time, he hoisted a special diamond edition Wally to commemorate NHRA’s 75th anniversary season.
“This is the coveted one right here,” Capps said as he held up the trophy. “You just think of the legacy and what’s gone into this. This is unbelievable. Thank you to Wally Parks, first of all. Katherine (Wooten) and everyone at NAPA, all the NAPA Auto Care people. We knew this was going to be a battle of attrition and dropped cylinders today. A couple of those runs, there was no way I would imagine that would have got us lane choice, but it did. It was like a bracket car. This win reminded me a lot of first my win in St. Louis [1997] because it was hot and we had 150-degree track temps there and we dropped cylinders all day but still won the race.
“You want to just take these (trophies) and chop them up into 6,000 pieces for all the different NAPA stores and NAPA Auto Cares,” he continued. “Carlyle Tools came on board and has done so much fun stuff with Maddi and me. NHRA, 75 years, it’s so awesome to win here. Everybody said I had bad luck, but look, we ended up winning. Monster Energy coming on board has been so much fun. Ron Capps Motorsports, we’re having fun right now.”
Next up for Capps and the NAPA Auto Care Funny Car team is the NHRA Winternationals, April 10-12, at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip in Pomona, Calif., where he will also compete in the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Funny Car Challenge. As a California native, it’s one of the tracks Capps calls home. He’s also won the Winternationals four times, most recently in 2021.
Start / Finish: No. 7 / winner in final round
Points Standing / Total: No. 3 / 151 pts. (-23)
Next Race: April 10-12, NHRA Winternationals, Pomona, Calif.
How to Watch or Listen: FS1,
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By NAPA
Christian Eckes nailed down his second podium result of the season at Darlington Raceway on Friday night with a third-place finish. The driver of the No. 91 Adaptive One Calipers Chevrolet Silverado RST captured his first stage win of the season and gained three positions in the championship standings with a stellar run throughout the 200-mile event.
Eckes put on a showcase in the first 45-lap stage after taking the green flag from 16th position. He wasted no time charging towards the front, cracking the top-10 by lap nine despite firing off with a snug balance. After restarting 10th on lap 19, Eckes charged up the leaderboard and into the top five by lap 27. He steadily worked the extreme bottom line in Turns 3 and 4 to perfection to chase down the leaders and claimed the lead by lap 42. He held on to capture 10 critical points and his first stage checker of the season.
After making a four-tire pit stop under the first stage caution, Eckes restarted sixth on lap 54 and quickly returned to the top-five. Unlike the first segment, he contended with an exceedingly loose balance and a lack of rear grip. The final 30 laps of the second stage ran under green-flag conditions, and Eckes padded his point total by securing six points in fifth position at lap 90.
Crew chief Dave Elenz made a small chassis adjustment to add rear grip during the No. 91 team’s second four-tire stop of the race. Eckes restarted seventh on lap 99 and returned to pit road shortly thereafter as a quick caution allowed the field to bolt on another set of sticker tires. Eckes restarted 13th on lap 109 but rapidly returned to fifth by lap 120. He took his final set of tires under a lap 120 caution and restarted fourth on lap 128. The night concluded with two frantic, green-white-checker restarts as Eckes briefly grabbed second and took the checkered flag in third position. The result advanced him to sixth in the championship standings as he has scored three top-five finishes in three races at “The Lady in Black” with MHR.
“Just needed a little more pace,” Eckes said after the race. “Really good on a long haul, especially in Stage 1. I just kind of lost the grip level and competitiveness of that stage for the rest of the race. Overall, really proud of these Adaptive One guys. It’s been a rough stretch. To get a stage win and complete all night is definitely good.”
Start / Finish: 16 / 3
Points Standing / Total: 6th / 119 pts. (-53)
Next Race: Friday, April 3, Rockingham Speedway
How to Watch or Listen: 4:30 p.m. ET on FS1 or SiriusXM
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By Counterman
Tri-State Enterprises announced its 2026 Big Money Show will take place April 25 at the Fort Worth Convention Center in historic downtown Fort Worth, Texas.
The annual Big Money Show unites
link hidden, please login to view customers and vendors from across the automotive hard parts, truck accessories and car audio markets. The one-day event will feature exclusive discounts, product showcases, and opportunities to connect and strengthen business relationships. Tri-State to spotlight new products and promotions
This year’s Big Money Show promises to be the largest yet. It will feature expanded product lines, promotional offers and substantial savings for attendees.
“The Big Money Show continues to be one of the most anticipated events in our industry,” said Scott Covelli, vice president of marketing at Tri-State Enterprises. “We’re excited to once again bring our customers and vendor partners together for a one-day selling show featuring exclusive discounts, prizes, and opportunities to strengthen partnerships.”
Fort Worth Convention Center to host 2026 event
The Fort Worth Convention Center offers a dynamic event space in a central downtown location, surrounded by dining and nightlife options. The venue will serve as the hub for Tri-State’s customers and vendors during the event.
Tri-State will announce additional details, including registration and hotel information, in the coming months.
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