CONCORD, N.C. — Two years after he graduated from nearby UNC Charlotte with a degree in Mechanical Engineering, Layne Riggs gave the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series field an education in how to win on Friday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Riggs chased down Kaden Honeycutt after a restart with 14 laps to go in the Ecosave 200, dove to the high line entering Turn 4 with seven laps left and watched as Honeycutt over-drove the corner, slid up the track and hit the Turn 4 wall.
The momentary bobble provided Riggs with the opportunity he needed to make a lead-changing — and, ultimately, race-winning — move to pull away and capture his seventh win of the Truck Series season.
“I feel like we’ve had the fastest truck, or the second-fastest truck, in the last four or five races,” Riggs said. “For me, I’m going to go try win every race. When I think about points, it makes me want to race harder and that’s not something I need to do. We had to be relaxed tonight and I just wanted to be myself.
“We’ve raced door-to-door all year long. When you do that, you’re going to run into each other a lot. I know I accidentally had (Honeycutt) jacked up on the frontstretch one time, which was totally not intentional.”
The victory also completed a 2026 sweep of the Truck Series’ two events at Charlotte for Riggs. He pulled it off against Honeycutt, one of his fiercest title rivals in the Truck Series Chase — and it could’ve been even worse for Honeycutt.
The series’ points leader entering Friday’s race, Honeycutt narrowly avoided disaster after he hit the wall, as he quickly fell to third behind eventual runner-up Christian Eckes.
Eckes attempted unsuccessfully to chase down Riggs in the final six circuits as he settled for second ahead of Honeycutt, Bayley Currey and Chandler Smith.
“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 (Honeycutt) obviously helped us. We just need to keep plugging forward.”
Finishing third allowed Honeycutt to leave Charlotte with a 17-point lead over Riggs in the standings.
“Too much mirror-driving on my end,” said 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.”
Riggs qualified 13th on Friday but fought his way to the front on Lap 15 — by passing Honeycutt, his title rival. Riggs went on to win Stage 1 and ultimately paced the field for 47 of 134 laps.
Daniel Hemric, Landen Lewis, Andres Perez De Lara, Tyler Ankrum and Justin Haley completed the top 10.
