HOMESTEAD, Fla. — Layne Riggs’ championship hopes unraveled almost immediately in Friday’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The driver of the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford got loose racing Nick Sanchez for fourth place on Lap 2 and slid the right side of his machine against Sanchez’s left. Fourteen laps later, his right-rear tire came apart, damaging his fenders and ultimately destroying his championship hopes as Kaden Honeycutt stormed to the victory and the title, besting Riggs by a whopping 83-point margin.
By the end of Stage 1 on Lap 30, Riggs was trapped two laps down in 34th place after he was forced to pit road on Lap 16 to replace the flat tire. The team opted to take the wave-around under the stage break to get one of his laps back, but the misery was just starting. Riggs hit pit road again on Lap 45 as his team addressed the damage under green-flag conditions, then received a penalty for too many crewmen going over the wall and had to return to pit road for a pass-through penalty, returning to competition seven laps down.
The dejection was palpable when Riggs finally climbed from the truck, finishing 32nd, six laps down.
RELATED: Race results | At-track photos: Homestead
“The pressures weren’t even up on the tires yet. We were already out of contention and never even knew what the balance was going to be,” Riggs said. “Never knew how fast my truck was going to be. I look at it as we blew up on Lap 2 or 3, just from a notes standpoint. We don’t really know what we were even going to have, so that’s what’s more disappointing for me.”
But the 24-year-old, second-generation racer managed to hold his head high despite his disappointment. In his third full-time season, Riggs bloomed into a true championship contender, entering as the No. 1 seed in The Chase presented by Mobil 1, all while earning a career-best seven wins.
“I had a long time to think about it in the truck, and I’m just thinking about the positives of the year we had,” said Riggs, who entered Friday’s race 20 points behind Honeycutt. “We knew it was going to be — I wouldn’t say a long shot or Hail Mary, whatever words you guys want to use — but it was going to take a lot of execution today to get it done, and we knew that was going to be difficult no matter what. And yeah, I mean, I’m just glad to put a pin at the end of the season, knowing we tried our best.”
Riggs wasn’t quite sure what happened that upended his day. The contact appeared slight, but the damage was done in a near-instant.
WATCH: Contact with Sanchez leads to Riggs’ damage | More issues strike Riggs | Watch NASCAR video highlights
“I don’t really know what happened there at the beginning,” Riggs said. “I feel like it kind of happened out of nowhere. I thought I was all good. Next thing I know, I’m sideways in the 77, and so I have no clue exactly what happened. But I had plenty of time riding around about 10 laps down to think about my day today, my year leading up to it. And of course I’m disappointed about this one race. But at the same time, I’m just so proud that I was even in a position to walk out on the stage before the race (and) had the potential at a championship.”
Riggs will be back in the No. 34 truck next season, likely fighting Honeycutt for the championship all over again in 2027, when the division becomes known as the NASCAR FedEx Freight Truck Series. The two proved to be the class of the field in 2026, combining for 12 race wins across the 25-race season.
“I think that it’s pretty obvious that we’re the two best, consistently fastest trucks week in and week out,” Riggs said. “Me and Kaden, we raced a long time against each other. This, tonight, was his night. During The Chase, he had a lot better run. We’ve just got to make sure that we’re more consistent like they were. That team has a lot of experience on top of the pit box and in their shop. We’re all still two-, three-year people just trying to learn and figure things out. I think that’s where we lack in our consistency department. But every spot that we weren’t number one is stuff that we’re motivated to get better at.”