After some early-race troubles on Friday, Layne Riggs had quite a while to think about how his Front Row Motorsports team was about to lose the 2026 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series championship to Kaden Honeycutt and TRICON Garage after an impeccable seven-win season.
In fact, the Bahama, North Carolina-native’s chance at the championship was pretty much over before Friday’s NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Championship Race at Homestead-Miami Speedway really got underway, after making contact with Nick Sanchez on the second lap of the race.
That contact led to a flat right-rear tire, which put him two laps arears at the end of Stage 1, while his championship rival, Kaden Honeycutt, went on to score stage points. Unfortunately for Riggs, the night didn’t get better, as that damaged caused additional flat tires that put him more than five laps down.
Sitting six laps behind the leader in last-place, while Honeycutt scored points in both of the first two stages, it was going to take a catastrophic event for Riggs to even have a shot at hoisting the championship trophy at the end of the night, which, in the end, just wasn’t meant to be.
“I had plenty of time to think about it when I was about 10 laps down out there,” Riggs joked in talking to FOX Sports 1 post-race. “Kind of just thinking about the year we had, the success that we had. Obviously we weren’t able to put the consistency together to be champions tonight. We knew we were going to have to run an almost perfect race. That’s hard to do anytime, any series, any level and division, but I’m just proud of this entire team that we were even in the mix, we even had a chance to become champion.
“It was disappointing to know I didn’t even know what my truck was going to be,” Riggs added. “After that initial contact, I don’t know what happened to the No. 77. I thought I was good. They said we were close together, I got super free up under him. Next thing I knew, we got a tire down. Pressures weren’t even up yet; we didn’t know the balance at the end of the race.”
With Honeycutt going to Victory Lane on Friday evening and Riggs finishing in the 32nd position, the driver of the No. 34 Ford F-150 finished a whopping 83 points behind the TRICON Garage driver – a number not indicative of the competition between the two drivers, which went off in a shot-for-shot manner all season long.
Confirmed back in the No. 34 Love’s RV Stops Ford F-150 for 2027, all Riggs and Front Row Motorsports can do is regroup, and come back stronger in February at Daytona, where they’ll begin the 25-race campaign fighting Kaden Honeycutt and others for the 2027 NASCAR FedEx Freight Truck Series title.
“Regroup, be better, look at all the positives that we have. Excited for next year,” Riggs said. “I have made solid progression every single year I’ve been in the Truck Series. I feel like I’m still progressing and maturing every single race as a driver. I’m super thankful to be on the racetrack and have top-notch equipment.”
“Today was a disappointment. I’m not going to put a bad look on the entire year as a season just from this one race when we knew it was going to be a Hail Mary to get it done anyway.”
“Hopefully we can do it next year.”
Photo by Sean Gardner, Getty Images
