That hurts. Under the Friday evening lights at Charlotte Motor Speedway, a 40-point swing went up in smoke when points leader Kaden Honeycutt slid his No. 11 Tricon Garage Toyota into the wall in Turns 3 and 4 with just six laps to go in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Chase race, presented by Mobil 1.
That late disaster opened the door wide for No. 1 seed Layne Riggs to storm past and take the victory—his first in The Chase. Riggs slashed the points lead down to 17, a margin that would have ballooned past 50 had Honeycutt managed to convert his speed into a win.
I will absolutely never be hunted. I will hunt everybody—35 race trucks on this race track every single week,
Honeycutt had been the class of the field for much of the 134-lapper at the 1.5-mile oval, swapping the lead with Riggs and eventually leading a race-high 85 laps. After Riggs took the opening stage before the sun fully set, Honeycutt fired back by claiming the Stage 2 win as darkness settled in. But a pair of cautions in the final 20 laps destroyed his cushion, including a multitruck wreck with 15 laps to go that brought the field to a halt for a 13-minute red flag.
When the race resumed with 11 laps remaining, Honeycutt launched well on the restart, but Riggs glued himself to the rear bumper of the No. 11 machine. The pressure mounted instantly. Watching his mirrors too much and misjudging just how close his rival actually was, Honeycutt got caught between lanes, panicked when Riggs closed within a truck or two, and ultimately tagged the wall. That mistake dropped him all the way to a third-place finish behind both Riggs and Christian Eckes.
“Too much mirror driving on my end,” Honeycutt said. “Seeing the replay, I thought he was closer than that to me. I thought he was actually taking the air off my spoiler, but he definitely wasn’t. I just was in between both lanes. I didn’t do the best job of that.”
Despite maintaining his points lead—having beaten Riggs in two of the first three races of The Chase—the Texas native was furious with himself and refused to sugarcoat a third-place result. He took absolute ownership of the late blunder, admitting he let his own head get the better of him instead of simply committing to a line or forcing the issue.
“I will absolutely never be hunted. I will hunt everybody—35 race trucks on this race track every single week,” Honeycutt said. “I felt like at the end, he wasn’t hunting me down. I just made a mistake and screwed up, and just wasn’t in my own mental headspace where I needed to be at. Definitely full blame on me for that. Nothing else.”
