Layne Riggs now has 10 wins as a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver, with half of them arriving this season. At Indianapolis Raceway Park, Riggs was simply unstoppable, leading 198 of 200 laps to cruise to a dominant victory over Connor Mosack, who earned the best finish of his career in second. The triumph also made him a back-to-back IRP winner, having led 160 of 200 laps at the track last year.
“They are just statement wins,” Riggs said. “What a truck. I was on cruise control for so much of the race. The No. 7 kept me honest out there. The last 15 laps with the traffic, I was running as hard as I could and I couldn’t get away from him. I knew we had a pretty good gap. Great job to my spotter, Josh. He did a great job today navigating me through traffic. Had that one mishap on the restart, just spun my tires really, really bad. When you get these tires spinning, they are so hard to recover, so thank you to the guys behind me for not turning me around. I know that could have easily happened. I’m not sure where Chandler finishes, but he had a good run as well. He got it last week, but we needed to flip the script and do it again this weekend.”
Ty Majeski placed third, Chandler Smith fourth, and Nick Sanchez fifth. Stewart Friesen, Kaden Honeycutt, Gavan Boschele (making his debut), Tyler Ankrum, and Michael Christopher Jr. rounded out the top 10.
Stages 1 and 2
There was simply nothing the field could do against Riggs in the No. 34 FRM entry. He led from pole and dominated the caution-free opening stage, working his way up to 15th in the running order by the stage’s end, with no pressure from behind.
Eckes suffered a mechanical issue during the stage break, later identified as an alternator problem, and returned to the race many laps down.
Riggs continued to dominate, while his teammate Smith traded places with Mosack over the runner-up spot.
Riggs once again lapped all the way up inside the top 15, sweeping the stages.
Stage 3
The first and only natural caution of the race came with 63 laps remaining. Daniel Hemric made contact with another truck while attempting to move to the inside, sending him spinning. He slid up the track and collected Landen Lewis, completely destroying both trucks. Lewis’s truck also briefly caught fire.
There was a red flag for cleanup, but when racing resumed, Honeycutt opted to pit for fresh tires in a strategic gamble. Mosack briefly closed to within two seconds in traffic but never mounted a serious challenge.
Grant Enfinger and Andres Perez tangled right in front of Riggs, and while Enfinger limped around the track with smoke pouring, NASCAR kept the race green as Riggs cruised to a commanding victory.
In the battle to make the Chase, Friesen holds the 10th and final spot, eight points ahead of Ankrum.
