There were plenty of smiles, handshakes, photo ops and “good luck” wishes alongside Layne Riggs’ No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford truck on pit road in the moments before Friday night’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Championship Race green flag at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
One of the team’s race sponsors, Bare Knuckles Boxing, had fighters surrounding Riggs’ truck, each boxer greeting the race “contender” – huge, shiny gold championship belts strategically placed over their shoulders in a showing of strength and solidarity for the racer.
Riggs appreciated the gesture and was smiling as he climbed into his Ford F150 and took his place behind the wheel, fourth on the starting grid – one position in front of his primary challenger for the 2026 series championship, TRICON Garage’s Kaden Honeycutt.
Yet the lengthy for all the pre-race positive vibes, Riggs’ championship hopes were essentially dashed only two laps into the race after colliding with the No. 77 Chevrolet driven by Nick Sanchez while the two were racing toward the front. The contact may have looked inconsequential, however there was enough damage to derail Rigg’s title run.
The 24-year-old second-generation NASCAR racer had to pit 14 laps later when his right rear tire finally went down as a result of the contact. He lost two laps as the team worked to make repairs to the right rear side, dropping to last in the 35-truck field.
The team made another handful of stops throughout the night to continue working on the truck and Riggs was seven laps down by the end of Stage 2. It all relegated him to an excruciating evening at the rear of the field while his title rival Honeycutt claimed his fifth win of the season to earn the title – celebrating what’s been a highly-competitive year-long tussle for the series championship trophy.
When Riggs climbed back out of his Ford after the race, he was stand-up, even if heart-broken. He finished 32nd, six laps off the pace.
“Racing as a whole, you have a lot more disappointing days then you have exciting days and today just wasn’t that exciting day for us, I knew we’d have to have a Hail Mary to get it done,” said Riggs, who said he would need to review video to see exactly what happened between himself and the 77-track in the early laps.
“The pressures weren’t even up on the tires yet and we were already out of contention, never knew how fast our truck was going to be,” Riggs said. “We don’t even know what we were going to have and that’s what’s disappointing for me.”
Despite the championship near-miss, it was an unquestionably break-out season for the North Carolinian Riggs, whose seven wins on the year more than doubled his total from any other season. His 988 laps out front also nearly doubled that of any other driver (Honeycutt led 592 laps).
He claimed trophies in the series’ St. Petersburg street course debut answering with a win in the inaugural San Diego street race with victories at Nashville, Indianapolis Raceway Park, New Hampshire and a Charlotte two-race sweep.
“Regroup and be better and look at all the positives that we had,” Riggs said of the offseason. “Just excited for next year. I’ve made solid progression every single year I’ve been in the truck series, and I feel like I’m still progressing and maturing every single race as a driver and just super thankful to be on the race track and have top-notch equipment.
“Obviously, this day was a disappointment but I’m not going to be a bad look on the season, this was one race and we knew it would be a Hail Mary to get it done anyway.”
“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,” Riggs said. “It was going to take a lot of execution today to get it done and we knew it was going to be difficult no matter what. I’m just glad to put a pin in the end of the season knowing we tried our best.”
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