Layne Riggs Finds Clutch Win at Charlotte Motor Speedway

Layne Riggs won the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Friday, his seventh of the 2026 season. Riggs traded the lead with Kaden Honeycutt for much of the race, ultimately prevailing on the final restart for a key Chase win.

“It was a great race tonight. Front Row Motorsports gave me a great truck. We’ve been working a lot at the Ford Racing simulator to get better for this race,” Riggs said. “Obviously, we still got to do some better work on pit road today, we lost spots every single time. But the truck was good enough, and I was confident enough behind the wheel that I was able to drive it back up to the front.”

Christian Eckes finished second, followed by Honeycutt in third. Bayley Currey finished fourth in his second start of the season, with Riggs’s Front Row Motorsports teammate Chandler Smith rounding out the top-five.

“We’ve done a really good job of bringing vehicles the last few races that are capable of running top-three, top-two,” Eckes said. “We just need to keep moving forward. Four races left, I don’t know the full points situation but Layne winning instead of [Kaden] obviously helped us. We just need to keep plugging forward.”

“Too much mirror-driving on my end,” added Honeycutt. “Seeing the replay, I thought he was closer to me. I actually thought he was taking the air off my spoiler, but he definitely wasn’t. I should’ve ran my own race and ran my own line. I felt like if me or him got out front with a few laps left, it was going to be over. Definitely disappointing on my end for sure. I take all the blame for that. I think I just panicked a bit too much when he got to me. I was too much in my head.”

Bayley Currey currently serves as truck chief on the No. 1 Tricon Garage Toyota, a role he holds concurrently with his part-time driving gig. In his first start at Bristol Motor Speedway Currey pulled off an improbable second-place finish. On Friday he proved it was no fluke, contending for the win and bringing his truck home fourth.

On Lap 87 two non-Chase drivers came together and lost their shot at a top-five. Brent Crews, driving the No. 1 Toyota for Tricon Garage, got loose underneath Connor Mosack’s No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet and took both trucks up to the wall. At the time the two were battling for fourth. Both trucks were forced down pit road from the ensuing damage, but the race stayed green.

The first non-stage caution came out on Lap 99 when Stewart Friesen slammed the wall. The No. 52 Toyota’s tire went down as Friesen limped back to pit road. On Lap 119 a multi-truck wreck ensued with Leland Honeyman Jr. slamming the wall in front of traffic. Rajah Caruth, Connor Mosack, Gio Ruggiero, and Timmy Hill were also involved.

Chase Outlook

Entering the race 37 points out, race-winner Layne Riggs is now only 17 points behind leader Kaden Honeycutt with four races remaining. Hindered by an equipment penalty, fifth-place finisher Chandler Smith remained third in the standings but dropped from 71 to 77 points back.

Christian Eckes continued a mid-Chase surge, having moved up four placed in the standings to fourth over the last two races. Even so, despite a strong second-place finish, the McAnally-Hilgemann Racing driver only moved from 88 to 82 points shy of Honeycutt this week.

At the drop of the green flag, Tricon Garage’s Gio Ruggiero was 72 points out of the lead and just one point behind Smith for third in the standings. His No. 17 Toyota Tundra was sent to the rear of the field for unapproved adjustments, and the team failed to earn any stage points before finishing 26th. They now sit sixth, 115 points separated from the lead.

This story will be updated.

Race Results