Retour
Layne Riggs drove nearly a flawless race in Friday night's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Black's Tire 200 at Martinsville Speedway. But on the final restart of the race with 12 laps remaining, he was unable to fend off Chandler Smith, his Front Row Motorsports teammate, who would go on to take the lead and, with it, the race win.
For the 24-year-old Smith, who is set to join Richard Childress Racing in the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series next season, the 12 laps led to end the race were his first laps led in the entire race. This is the third win of the season for Smith, and the win put Smith into double-digit wins for his career, which spans 111 races, as he now has 10 career victories in NASCAR Truck Series competition.
Ben Rhodes would follow Smith by Riggs as he would score a runner-up finish, while Riggs, the Stage 1 and Stage 2 winner, would settle for a third-place finish.
Riggs led a race-high 156 laps in the 200-lap contest, including the opening 109 laps of the event, but ultimately came up empty.
However, with Kaden Honeycutt, the championship point leader finishing 14th after a late-race pushing-and-shoving situation on-track, Riggs was able to carve into Honeycutt's point lead. Honeycutt's advantage, which stood at 43 points entering the night, is now down to 20 points over Riggs.
While he was disappointed to miss out on the win, Riggs knows next weekend's season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway is essentially a winner-take-all situation for the championship.
Ty Majeski came home with a solid fourth-place finish, ahead of Tristan McKee, who became the youngest NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series polesitter in history earlier in the day, the fifth-place finisher.
Andres Perez de Lara, Tyler Ankrum, Gio Ruggiero, William Sawalich, and Christian Eckes rounded out the top-10 finishers in the Black's Tire 200 at Martinsville.
Heading into the final race of the season at Homestead-Miami Speedway next weekend, only Honeycutt and Riggs remain mathematically eligible to collect the championship trophy.
*This story will be updated with post-race quotes and additional information.