What’s Happening?

This weekend, the NASCAR Xfinity and Cup Series returned to the newly renamed EchoPark Speedway in Hampton, Georgia for a Friday and Saturday night summer showdown of epic proportions. Meanwhile, the Trucks and ARCA series made their debut at the historic Lime Rock Park. With the action-packed two-day thrill fest now over, here are some of the biggest losers in the NASCAR world this weekend.

Christian Eckes

To say that the 2025 season has been a monumental disappointment for Truck Series winner Christian Eckes would be like saying there ain’t no peaches in Georgia. Throughout this grind of a season, Eckes has made it clear that he’s unhappy with his performance this year. Considering Kaulig’s past dominance at superspeedway-style ovals, he was hoping to turn things around in Friday night’s Xfinity Series race. However, he jumped the gun early on when he junked Parker Retzlaff in the 31 car for Jordan Anderson Racing.

This was overt aggression on the part of Eckes and because of this, a number of cars got taken out of the race. One of those cars happened to be his teammate, Josh Williams. To make matters worse, Eckes only managed a 19th place finish in Friday’s race. Certainly for him (and his team) this will be one that he’ll want to forget.

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Corey Heim Haters

Not much to say about this one. Heimtime is seemingly here to stay, which is bad news for Corey Heim’s detractors. Nobody can deny his talents. But for anyone who lived through Jimmie Johnson’s reign of terror between 2006 and 2010, we know that NASCAR fans notoriously hates any one driver who dominates like Heim has as of late. Watching the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series has become something of a game to see how Heim gets screwed over in the end. More often than not, he dominates the opening stages only for a mechanical failure or a mistake to undo it all. But then sometimes, that just doesn’t happen. Sometimes, Heim puts on a clinic in domination. And that was exactly what happened in Lime Rock.

At Lime Rock, Heim scored his 13th and 14th stage wins of the year as well as his 5th race win of 2025. Realistically, Heim could have won every single race this season. If only luck fell his way a little more often. He is the overwhelming favorite to win the title, which is bad news for the Corey Heim haters out there. Looks like Heimtime is a permanent feature of the 2025 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Season.

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Anyone Who Wasn’t An Underdog in the In-Season Bracket Challenge

This is a biggie. Probably about 99% of fans’ brackets for the In-Season Challenge got blown up last night just in the first 100 laps. There were two massive big ones that broke out last night. The first one came just before the end of Stage 1. This crash in particular involved Christopher Bell, Ryan Blaney, Kyle Larson, and Austin Dillon. None of them advanced, meaning that drivers like Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Carson Hocevar were through to the next round.

But just when we thought we had seen the big one and the field was about to calm down, we were left holding their beer. At the beginning of the second stage, a massive pileup involving 29, yes 29, cars broke out. Heavy hitters such as Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Chase Briscoe, William Byron, Joey Logano, Daniel Suarez, and Josh Berry were all involved. None of them ultimately advanced, opening the door for Brad Keselowski, Ty Dillon, Noah Gragson, and A. J. Allmendinger. For all intents and purposes, last night was the Night of the Underdogs! I mean, really: who had Ty Dillon upsetting Denny Hamlin!? I certainly didn’t! And if you did, you’re lying!

Brad Keselowski

Overall, last night was a pretty good night for Bad Brad. After an abysmal start to the year, the 6 crew made some internal changes and, in recent weeks, they started to turn things around. Brad’s been leading a little more lately and though he’s yet to put a full race together, he has shown some stark improvement. That continued last night. Brad Keselowski led 46 laps last night. That’s second most behind Joey Logano, who led most of the first stage. Ultimately Brad finished second and scored a total of 49 points. Seems like a solid run, right?

Well, for Brad second doesn’t cut it. “Good points days” don’t matter. Brad Keselowski is currently 27th in points. He could get nine straight runner-up finishes and still miss the Playoffs. He needs a win. Last night was the best opportunity he had in over a year to get the job done and he just didn’t do it. Looks like Bad Brad might have to put all of his eggs in the Daytona basket. That said, it should make for an exciting cutoff race.

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Hampton, Georgia Weather

Lastly, one of the biggest losers of the weekend was the Hampton, Georgia weather. Being from the southeast myself, I’m no stranger to popup summer showers and freak weather events. That’s just how it is this time of year in this part of the world. I call it “Florida weather”. Anyone who’s been to Orlando knows what I’m talking about. It’s par for the course. Both races this weekend were affected by inclement weather in one way or another. The most affected, of course, was the Xfinity Series race on Friday night. The start of the race was delayed by lightning for about an hour. Then, once we got things rolling, the lightening returned for about an hour and a half, meaning we didn’t see the checkered flag until up in the early morning.

Last night, we were able to start on time. But after running about 40 laps, a popup shower rolled through, putting a damper on things. Literally. The race was red flagged and we were once again under a weather delay. Fortunately, this delay lasted only about 20 to 30 minutes and the rest of the race went off without a hitch…well, other than the extended red flag for the second massive pileup of the night. That wasn’t ideal.

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