Now, that is how you set up a title fight. Twenty points is all that stands between Kaden Honeycutt and Layne Riggs as the final two drivers eligible to take the 2026 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship following a brutal, chaotic slugfest at Martinsville Speedway.
Friday night around “The Paperclip” was an absolute masterclass in momentum swings. Layne Riggs controlled the vast majority of the 200-lap contest, leading 156 circuits and sweeping the stages to pocket an extra 20 points in The Chase presented by Mobil 1. He looked locked in for the victory until a poor restart after the ninth and final caution of the night derailed everything. Riggs slipped to third as his Front Row Motorsports teammate Chandler Smith and ThorSport Racing’s Ben Rhodes rocketed past. Further back, things went from bad to worse for Honeycutt. A miserable restart dropped his No. 11 Toyota from sixth to 14th after late contact with 16-year-old phenom Tristan McKee bumped him high up the track with barely any time left to recover.
I don’t think he was really mad at me; just probably more mad with the situation of the championship deal,
What was once a comfortable 43-point cushion for Honeycutt entering the night has shrunk to a much leaner, far more stressful 20-point lead as the series heads to the Nov. 6 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Everyone else behind the top two was officially eliminated from championship contention on Friday. Honeycutt knows just how fragile that advantage is now. “There’s definitely nowhere safe. I’ve seen a lot of points made up tonight,” Honeycutt said after the race, though he remains optimistic about the mile-and-a-half trip to South Florida. His mindset for the finale is wonderfully simple: “Just go win it.” Riggs shares the exact same aggression, stating plainly, “We’re going to go win it.”
Riggs enters as the series’ winningest driver with seven victories in 2026 and the No. 1 seed, knowing the power of a race win under this format where winners bank a minimum of 55 points—a massive 20-point swing over finishing second. Reflecting on the chaos, Riggs lamented his choice of the top lane for the final restart against the advice of his No. 34 Front Row Motorsports team. “I wanted to take the top. My team kind of differed against that,” Riggs admitted, noting how it left his fate in the hands of the driver on the inside. He added, “Congrats to Chandler on the win. It’s been a little while for those guys, but man, those bonus points really would have been nice. And even more than that, I wanted a grandfather clock really, really bad.”
Honeycutt had his own postwar drama to sort out, climbing out of his Tricon Garage entry and marching over to Tristan McKee’s No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet on pit road to get answers about their late tangle. The confusion cleared up when Honeycutt realized McKee was squeezed by Ty Majeski on the bottom and never got the call that they were three-wide. “I hate what happened into [Turn] 1,” Honeycutt said, admitting he closed the hole unaware of the cars to his inside. Thankfully for him, the No. 38 won and helped soften the blow for the championship battle ahead. McKee, who earlier on Friday became the youngest pole-sitter in NASCAR national series history at 16 years, 2 months and 27 days old, handled the confrontation with maturity. “I don’t think he was really mad at me; just probably more mad with the situation of the championship deal,” McKee said, noting that there was nothing else he could have done in the tight squeeze.
