Garcia Takes First Career Truck Series Win; Loose Wheel Dooms Riggs

On what turned out to be a messy night for the favorites to win the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship, Jake Garcia capitalized on opportunity and scored his first career victory in Thursday night’s UNOH 250 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

The driver, who was atop the scoring pylon in Thursday’s qualifying session before weather wiped out the session with eight trucks left to qualify, is proud of the effort from his team, which allowed him to be in a position to compete for the win.

“Really proud of all of my guys. They brought an amazing truck tonight. It was good today, but qualifying got rained out. We had a good strategy that helped us come from the back, get some track position, start Stage 3 with the lead. Yeah, it kind of took off from there,” Garcia explained.

The driver of the No. 98 ThorSport Ford F-150 led 104 laps on his way to collecting the checkered flag at the 0.533-mile short track. Garcia admits that he had a slight scare on a late-race restart, but in the end, his No. 98 truck was too strong to be beaten.

“Had some adversity on that last restart, but fortunately, the truck was fast enough to overcome that. Just really proud of this moment,” Garcia said.

The 21-year-old driver, who narrowly missed advancing to the 10-driver Chase field, is building momentum heading into the 2027 season.

Garcia held off Bayley Currey, who snagged an impressive runner-up finish in his first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series start of the season. Currey, a truck chief at TRICON Garage, got the chance to compete behind the wheel of the No. 5 TRICON Garage Toyota on Thursday night, and he definitely took advantage of the opportunity.

Stewart Friesen claimed a third-place finish, while Justin Haley took home a fourth-place finish driving the No. 16 Ram Truck for Kaulig Racing.

Tristan McKee, who secured the ARCA Menards Series East championship earlier in the evening, scored a fifth-place finish. McKee, 16, became the youngest driver to ever score a top-five result in the history of the NASCAR Truck Series.

Thursday night’s race served as the opening race of the seven-race Chase for the Championship, and it was a rough night for Chase contenders.

Gio Ruggiero, who finished sixth, was the top-finishing Chase contender in the field.

William Sawalich, Kaden Honeycutt, Ty Majeski, and Grant Enfinger rounded out the top-10 finishers in the UNOH 250.

Layne RIggs, the favorite to win the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship, suffered a loose wheel, which led to an unscheduled green flag pit stop in the race’s final Stage. This put Riggs two laps behind the leaders, and derailed his strong race.

Once he was mired two laps down, Riggs was involved in a late-race crash with Nick Leitz. The end result was a 32nd-place finish, 16 laps off the pace for Riggs.

As a result, Riggs saw his 25-point lead over Kaden Honeycutt evaporate. Riggs now carries a slim three-point lead exiting Bristol.

Honeycutt could have possibly taken the point lead on Thursday night, but he also suffered from a loose wheel on a late-race pit stop, which necessitated a return down pit road to address the issue.

Fortunately, for Honeycutt, his issue occurred under the caution, which allowed him to minimize the impact of the situation, and he was able to rally to a top-10 finish.

Chandler Smith, who came into the evening as the No. 3 seed in the Chase, was penalized for speeding on pit road during the caution at the end of Stage 2. Later, Smith would suffer a loose wheel, and would have to pit under green.

Smith would end the day two laps down in 24th.

Next up for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Seris is the Race to Stop Suicide 200 at Kansas Speedway on Saturday, September 26. That race will be televised on FS1 with coverage set to kick off at 1 PM ET. The NASCAR Radio Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast of that event.