After Corey Heim’s dominant 2025 championship season in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, the question of who would fill the shoes as the next driver to beat for the following year would soon arise. The name that’s risen to the top at the halfway point of the season is the driver of the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford F-150, Layne Riggs.
Riggs entered this season with an already established resume not only in trucks, with five prior victories across two seasons in 2024-25, but with his short-track experience across the Carolina’s.
For years, Riggs chased his racing dreams with the guidance of his father and former driver Scott Riggs, and relying more on determination than resources. Now, after years of climbing through late model ranks and earning a championship in the NASCAR Weekly Series in 2022, the 24-year old from Bahama, North Carolina has thrown his hat into the ring of the sport’s rising prospects.
This season, the Front Row group led by crew chief Dylan Capello leads by 65 points over the No. 11 of Kaden Honeycutt with four wins, seven top fives, eight top 10’s, and an average finish of 10.2 with zero DNF’s.
What makes this season all the more impressive is Riggs’ adjustments to road course racing, as his average finish has jumped from 17.3 to 7.6. So far, he has two street course wins in both inaugural races at St. Petersburg, and most recently on the Coronado Naval Base in San Diego. Riggs has accredited his uptick in performance to legendary road racer Joey Hand and Ford Racing’s mentorship to help the short tracker be multi-diverse in his driving ability.
“He’s (Hand) done a lot of work with me on the road courses, we’ve been practicing on the simulator since December,” Riggs said. “My goal was to get a win outside of my comfort zone.”
So far, that ‘stepping out’ of his comfort zone has Riggs two-for-two on the street courses, and even a unique nickname for himself.
“Layne Van Riggsbergen came to play today,” Riggs said after San Diego. “We’re undefeated in street courses.”
With the success at the current level, many in the industry ponder the idea of when Layne will get his big break in the Cup Series like most prospects do. While the goal is to move up one day, Riggs is not in the biggest hurry like most of his young peers.
“I feel like if it’s a rushed opportunity to do so or something that I’m not comfortable with, I would rather just stay where I’m at and develop a bit more,” Riggs said. “I would be fine with running eight years in the Truck Series and then having a 15-year-long Cup career, that sounds like a lot of fun.”
Riggs and Front Row Motorsports will to look to continue being the class of the field with their next stop coming at Lime Rock Park on Saturday, July 11 at 1:00 p.m. on FS1.
