NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series points leader, Layne Riggs, is already performing at an extremely high level, and now, as the series enters the part of the season where short tracks, his speciality, become prominent, that may spell trouble for the field.
The Bahama, North Carolina-native will lead the field to green in Saturday’s Faith Fest 250 at North Wilkesboro Speedway, after laying down a monstrous qualifying lap, that destroyed the previous track record by more than five miles per hour.
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“We’ve done everything we can do so far, right?” Riggs told Josh Sims after qualifying. “I did not think that was going to be a pole lap, in our mock run we were really tight, like a ten out of ten tight, and I told Dylan [Cappello, crew chief], I don’t know how much to free it up here, so he just took a stab at it and just from that run I was a three or four tight, I came in and I was like, that’ll probably be top-10, I didn’t really feel good about it.”
With a lap time of 18.502 seconds (121.608), Riggs collected his seventh pole in the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series and his second of the year, beating out NASCAR Cup Series regulars (current and future) Carson Hocevar, Christopher Bell, and Corey Heim. Gio Ruggiero rounded out the top-five for TRICON Garage.
Chase Elliott was sixth in the No. 7 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Silverado RST for Spire Motorsports, with Kaden Honeycutt, Grant Enfinger, Chandler Smith, and Stewart Friesen rounding out the top-10.
Nick Leitz, in his first of four scheduled races with TRICON Garage in the No. 1 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro, qualified a solid 12th, a career-best qualifying effort. Kasey Kleyn and Donovan Strauss also collected career-bests and will make their NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series debuts on Saturday at North Wilkesboro.
With 38 trucks on the premises of North Wilkesboro Speedway, two drivers were sent packing early, those being Timmy Hill – who had a mechanical issue preventing the No. 56 from turning a qualifying run, and the No. 75 driven by Landon Huffman.
The Faith Fest 250 will take place Saturday, July 18 at 12:30 PM ET on FOX Sports 1.
