In all likelihood, the NASCAR Truck Series Chase for the Championship will be Layne Riggs vs Kaden Honeycutt but there is recent evidence to suggest that there could be a surprise player set to join them.
For example, in the O’Reilly Series, Sheldon Creed is now the championship leader after finishes of first and second to open the nine-race shootout. And while top-seeded Denny Hamlin remains the Cup Series points leader after two middling results, that championship is more wide-open than anyone could have anticipated.
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In the Truck Series, it wouldn’t be completely outrageous for former champions Ben Rhodes and Ty Majeski to make a run, even amidst a season where their ThorSport Racing team has not been as competitive.
“We’re certainly off,” Majeski said. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it. I feel like there are areas where we need to get better. I feel like our peak is there. We’ve shown race-winning speed at a handful of tracks, but a handful of tracks isn’t good enough. We have to find that consistency.
“We need to have our off days be fifth to seventh and right now our off days are more like 10th to 12th. We have to raise the bar and put ourselves in better positions to win. If you only put yourself in position to win five or six of these races, it’s hard to win one. You have to do it on a consistent basis in order to truly compete for championships and compete for wins.”
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The last time a ThorSport team won a race, it was Majeski winning the championship race in the elimination format back 2024. How is that possible, two-time champion Ben Rhodes?
“I wish I could put my finger on one solid thing and say, ‘That’s it’ but in certain instances I can say execution,” Rhodes said. “There’s been some mistakes made by me or even by others and then there’s been some bad luck that has happened this year. But you can’t use that as an excuse to say that we don’t need to be searching for more speed. We always need to. That’s the name of the game. That’s racing.
“I wish I could say that there’s one single thing and if I could say it, I probably shouldn’t be able to say it with all of our partners involved, but I think it’s a combination of stuff. I would say that if you were to talk to Ty he would probably echo my sentiment on that.”
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What about 2021 Truck Series champion Daniel Hemric, whom has no shortage of experience under pressure, even if that also came under the final four format from over the past decade?
“Experience is going to play off for anybody and everyone who’s been a part of having to race under similar circumstances as this throughout parts of their career,” Hemric said. “You’re trying to stack your best couple of weeks together, week after week. I feel like it’s going to be crucial for everybody who’s experienced stuff like that.”
Reset standings
Layne Riggs
Kaden Honeycutt -25
Chandler Smith -35
Christian Eckes -40
Giovanni Ruggiero -45
Ty Majeski -50
Grant Enfinger -55
Daniel Hemric -60
Ben Rhodes -65
Tyler Ankrum -70
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The Big Three
In all actuality, this season has been about The Big Three of Riggs, Honecutt and Smith. They have combined to win 10 of the 18 races thus far at a six, two and two clip, respectively.
At the same time, Honeycutt and Smith also have more top-10s than Riggs, which could prove vital in a short seven-race Chase for the Championship too. Riggs will start with a 25-point advantage but he’s learned from Hamlin and Justin Allgaier that it doesn’t mean that much.
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“That goes to show that 25 points is nothing, even though it sounds like it’s a decent lead,” Riggs said. “I feel like being passive inside the Chase is not going to win you a championship. A lot of people are saying, ‘Oh, the winner might not even win a race inside the Chase.’
“That’s not going to happen. The winner of the championship is going to win, I would say, at least two races if he thinks he has a shot at it. Being passive and running just top five the whole time isn’t going to win you a championship. I think that just staying on the same path we’ve been on the same way we’ve been points racing all year, we just have to stay on that exact same kind of mindset and don’t psych ourselves out about it.”
At the same time, Honeycutt intends to win races, but he’s taking the opposite approach that he isn’t going to be as aggressive, in the hopes that others will cost themselves points due to their approach.
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“I really believe I just need to be consistent, and we’ve obviously seen the last couple races for Cup have completely turned upside down for most of the guys,” Honeycutt said. “I feel like if we just execute, do our own deal, race our race, and not try to do anything else other than that and not focus on points so much, just focus on winning, and everything kind of takes care of itself after that.”
Another advantage Honeycutt has is two-time Truck Series championship-winning crew chief Scott Zipadelli, who also engineered all the success Corey Heim enjoyed on the tour the past three seasons.
This is the same road crew that also won a championship with Brett Moffitt at Hattori Racing Enterprises.
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“Scott has helped me tremendously on my race craft and he’s done a lot of things for me outside of truck racing that’s led to winning races,” Honeycutt said. “I just think that’s a testament for how good of a teacher he is, how good of a crew chief he is, and also a great person as well.”
Smith feels like he’s a pair of mistakes away from having had a chance to win the regular season championship too.
“I really do,” Smith said. “We’re 35 points out now and when you look at the last few races of the regular season how we started cutting that points deficit back in. We really got that points deficit from me being silly at Charlotte and then getting wrecked at San Diego.
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“Without those two races and we finish where we needed to finish in those two races, it would have been a great regular season finale of duking it out between Layne and I, but those two races we didn’t get the points and Layne actually won both of those races, ironically enough.
“So, with that being said, I’m very excited about it. I think our team is in a good spot right now. We’ve got really good inventory, good products that are going to be hitting the racetrack for the Chase. The team is in a good spot. The driver is in a good spot. I’m really looking forward to seeing what the Lord has in store for this Chase.”
Honeycutt is just focused inward.
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“Honestly, I don’t really compare myself to anybody,” Honeycutt said. “We’re racing 35 other trucks on the racetrack to win every week and that’s kind of the mindset. What this team sets on is we go out to win no matter who’s in front of us, a Chase guy or a non-Chase guy, it doesn’t matter.
“We go out and try to win the race and the points take care of themselves after that. That’s just Scott and the guys’ idea, and that’s my idea as well, that’s all we focus on is 35 other trucks to beat every single week.”
For his part, Riggs appreciates being viewed as the man to beat.
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“I do because everybody wants to be me,” Riggs said. “Who doesn’t want to be the number one guy with a target on your back. Somebody else said, ‘How do you like being hunted?’ And I’m like, I’m still the hunter. I’m hunting for a bigger points lead. I’m not on defense. I’m on just as much offense as I have been all year long and that’s not going to change.”
Who else?
Strong cases can still be made for fourth-seeded Christian Eckes as one of the most experienced drivers in the division this year and fifth-seeded Gio Ruggiero is driving the same caliber of trucks as Honeycutt at Tricon Garage.
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Eckes hasn’t won yet this year but that kind of leaves him feeling like he is playing with house money.
“For us, it’s definitely not dragging us down at all,” Eckes said. “If anything, I’d say it really puts us into a position where we don’t have anything to lose because we’re not the favorite and we haven’t been the best running truck throughout the year. So, it puts us in a spot, where whatever happens, happens and we’ll do the best we can.”
Grant Enfinger was one Corey Heim retaliatory spin of Carson Hocevar away from winning the championship in 2023. Tyler Ankrum is the most experienced Truck Series driver in the field and is battled tested from just narrowly making the Chase to begin with.
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“We can do this,” Enfinger said, definitively.
The schedule also includes several races that feel like wild card rounds in Bristol, Talladega and Martinsville before the title is decided at Homestead-Miami. The Big One at Talladega could just as well take out all three primary contenders, making the final two races a total shootout.
The aforementioned Big Three are the class of the field but it wouldn’t be uncanny for anyone to go on a run these next seven weeks.
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