One down, two to go.
Kaden Honeycutt has a championship trophy, a race victory and a very good reason to celebrate Friday night at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Layne Riggs, meanwhile, has an entire offseason to contemplate what might have been.
Honeycutt put an emphatic finish on his 2026 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series campaign, winning the season finale at Homestead to claim his first national-series championship. The driver of the No. 11 TRICON Garage Toyota led the final 13 laps, passed Christian Eckes on a late restart and drove away to collect his fifth victory of the season.
He won by 1.038 seconds.
More importantly, he won the championship by 83 points over Riggs, who entered the night trailing Honeycutt by just 20 points and looking to turn Friday’s race into a heavyweight title fight.
Unfortunately, Riggs’ championship hopes lasted about as long as an ice cube on the dashboard of a Florida pickup truck.
The trouble began early. Contact with polesitter Nick Sanchez on Lap 2 bent the right-rear fender of Riggs’ Ford. By Lap 18, the damage had taken its toll, and the right-rear tire exploded.
Riggs went two laps down but managed to fight his way through the field and recover one of those laps before the end of Stage 1. There was still a championship to be won, and the No. 34 team wasn’t about to surrender without a fight.
Then the right-rear tire failed again.
The damage to the fender proved more extensive than initially believed, and Riggs was forced back to pit road. He emerged seven laps down, effectively ending any realistic chance of catching Honeycutt. He eventually finished 32nd, six laps off the pace.
It was a brutal end to what had been a remarkable season for Riggs, who entered the championship race with seven victories and a legitimate shot at the title.
Honeycutt, meanwhile, had to make sure he didn’t do anything particularly stupid with the opportunity suddenly sitting in front of him.
For much of the first half of the race, he was content to be patient. Once Riggs’ troubles became insurmountable, however, the No. 11 driver turned his attention to winning the race as well as the championship.
And he wasn’t about to settle for just one.
“The first half of the race I did not want to push it too hard,” Honeycutt said. “It fell in our hands. I put my nuts on the dash and wanted to win the race.”
He got his wish.
Honeycutt took the lead from Eckes with 13 laps remaining and never looked back, completing a night that will undoubtedly rank among the biggest moments of his racing career.
When asked about the people who helped him reach the championship, Honeycutt was quick to praise crew chief Scott Zipadelli and the entire TRICON Garage organization.
“Because this team is freaking Hall of Fame team,” Honeycutt said. “Scott Zipadelli is the best damn crew chief on that pit road. He’s the best man out of there. He’s not just a Hall of Fame crew chief, he’s a Hall of Fame man. He’s done nothing but mentor me and make me better every single week.”
The emotion was evident as Honeycutt celebrated with his family, including his parents watching from the grandstands and his wife, who was overcome with tears of joy near the team’s pit box.
“We did it, mom and dad,” Honeycutt said.
He also made sure to recognize the people who had given him opportunities throughout his career.
“Man, this is amazing. I’ve worked so damn hard to be here,” he said. “Thank you to every owner, thank you everybody that’s let me drive the race car for them, whether it was dirt, asphalt, road course, doesn’t matter. That is because of you guys I’m sitting right here with this group behind me as champions.”
Eckes finished second, followed by Daniel Hemric, Ty Majeski and Stewart Friesen. Corey Heim, who led 45 laps, finished sixth after Christian Eckes led a race-high 46 laps.
Chandler Smith, Jake Garcia, Grant Enfinger and Corey LaJoie completed the top 10.
Sanchez, who started from the pole and won Stage 1, saw his night end when his engine expired on Lap 106. The Miami native finished 35th. Daniel Hemric captured the Stage 2 victory.
The race also featured a multi-truck incident in Turn 3 following a four-wide traffic jam that collected Landen Lewis, Tyler Akrum, Tanner Gray and others.
For Riggs, there was little to do but reflect on a season that came remarkably close to ending with a championship.
“Yeah, I had plenty of time to think about it when I was about 10 laps down out there,” Riggs said. “Kind of just thinking about the year we had, the success that we had.”
Riggs acknowledged that consistency had ultimately been the difference, even before Friday’s mechanical problems took him out of contention.
“Obviously we weren’t able to put the consistency together to be champions tonight,” he said. “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.”
Still, Riggs wasn’t about to let one miserable evening erase everything his team accomplished during the year.
“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,” he said.
The two championship contenders won’t have to wait long for another opportunity. Both Honeycutt and Riggs are expected to return for full-time Truck Series campaigns in 2027, with Honeycutt looking to defend his newly acquired crown and Riggs hoping to finish what he started.
The 2027 season gets underway February 13 at Daytona International Speedway.
For Honeycutt, the celebration can begin. For Riggs, the work starts all over again.
Honeycutt got the trophy, the victory and the celebration. Riggs got a reminder that in NASCAR, an entire season can sometimes come down to a piece of rubber that decides it has had enough.
RACE RESULTS
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
- Justin Allgaier turns retirement talk into another championship - November 7, 2026
- Kaden Honeycutt delivers the goods when Layne Riggs’ tires don’t - November 6, 2026
- Hocevar will have to watch the NASCAR finale from his couch - November 3, 2026