Kaden Honeycutt Gets First Truck Series Win in Overtime

Kaden Honeycutt won his first career NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race on Friday, beating some of the best road racers in the sport on an overtime restart. Having just won the ARCA Menards Series race earlier in the day, Honeycutt’s Truck win completed a sweep at Watkins Glen International.

“I just won on a road course, that’s just unbelievable!” Honeycutt said. “I think [Connor] Zilisch missed a shift a little bit coming off Turn 7, and I was just tight to him. The only option I had, we were three-wide going into [Turn] 1, and I barely got to his right-rear and touched him a little bit. It was just enough to scoot on by!”

Connor Zilisch finished second for Spire Motorsports, leading 28 laps but falling just short of his own first career Truck Series win. Rounding out the top five was Shane van Gisbergen, Daniel Hemric, and Chandler Smith.

“I wish I could go back and redo it and just pick the inside,” Zilisch said. “It is what it is. We’ve got two more races this weekend.”

As promised on social media, Honeycutt celebrated his win by shotgunning a can of beer with the fans in the Watkins Glen grandstands. Just last year leading up to Watkins Glen, Honeycutt was released by Niece Motorsports in the middle of a full-time season. After one race with Young’s Motorsports, he closed the year with Halmar-Friesen Racing before joining Tricon Garage in 2026.

Quiet Before the Storm

The first two stages of the race were mostly clean. Each of the two stage breaks were the first cautions of the day, with Daniel Hemric and Connor Zilisch winning the stages respectively. Finally, on Lap 58, the first caution for incident was thrown. Grant Enfinger’s No. 9 Chevrolet stalled on-track.

As it happened, a caution was exactly what Ross Chastain needed to ensure he had enough fuel for the finish. Having stayed out on the previous pit cycle for track position, a caution gave Chastain the opportunity to conserve fuel in the No. 45 Niece Motorsports Chevrolet. He stayed out again on the caution, as did the rest of the top five.

Kicking Off Chaos

On the ensuing restart, the No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet of Carson Hocevar was turned hard into the inside wall after contact from A.J. Allmendinger. Hocevar appeared to lose momentum on the restart, and Allmendinger’s No. 25 Kaulig Racing Ram sent him spinning before they even reached the start-finish line. The caution flag returned moments later.

While under caution, NASCAR penalized Chastain and the No. 45 team for jumping the prior restart. Chastain protested on the radio, incredulous at being penalized as the control car. NASCAR ruled that he accelerated before the restart zone. This shuffled Connor Zilisch and Gio Ruggiero to the front row, with Brent Crews and Brenden Queen on Row 2.

Zilisch vs. Ruggiero

For the second straight restart, the race was already back under caution just as the field exited Turn 1. Ruggiero ran Zilisch up to the outside wall as the trucks accelerated, before Layne Riggs and Kris Wright wrecked into the tire barriers moments after taking the green. Ruggiero inherited the lead, with Zilisch and Crews behind them.

“He just drove me into the fence,” Zilisch could be heard saying about Ruggiero over his radio. “It’s okay, I can do it to him too.”

Restarting with four laps to go, Zilisch and Ruggiero stayed neck and neck for the first couple corners. After the two made contact, Zilisch opened up a lead of eight tenths of a second coming back to the line. Just as it appeared the 19-year-old would cruise to his first career Truck Series win, Timmy Hill and Ross Chastain crashed to bring out the caution once more. Chastain was turned following contact from Ty Majeski, with Hill an innocent bystander.

Honeycutt Wins in Overtime

Under caution, NASCAR issued yet another restart penalty to a front row driver. Gio Ruggiero was deemed to have jumped the restart, sending his No. 17 Tricon Garage Toyota to the tail of the lead lap. Ruggerio was as frustrated as Chastain before him, using his radio to call the decision “f—ing bulls–t”. He felt that contact from Brenden Queen forced him into an early acceleration.

The first overtime restart lined up with Zilisch in the lead followed by Kaden Honeycutt, Brent Crews, and road course ace A.J. Allmendinger. The presence of Allmendinger marked the first time one of Kaulig Racing’s Rams has been in close contention for the win at the end of a race in the 2026 season. Three Kaulig Rams trucks finished in the top-ten on Friday.

Kaden Honeycutt surged ahead of Zilisch in Turn 1 on the overtime restart, building on the momentum from his ARCA win earlier in the day. Shane van Gisbergen worked his way to third by the time the field took the white flag. Even with two of NASCAR’s greatest road course racers in his rear view mirror, Honeycutt could not be caught. He pulled ahead and clinched his first career NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series victory.

Race Results