NORTH WILKESBORO, NC — No driver in NASCAR’s Craftsman Truck Series is having as good of a year as Layne Riggs.
The 24-year-old leads the circuit in wins this season with four, taking checkered flags at St. Petersburg, Charlotte, Nashville and Naval Base Coronado. Riggs also leads the series in points this season, has the most stage wins of any driver and has captured a pair of poles, most recently at the historic North Wilkesboro Speedway.
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“It’s a great feeling to show up in the racetrack with your hauler first and knowing that you’re the one with the target on your back that everybody knows that they have to beat every weekend,” Riggs said this weekend.
Riggs finished second at North Wilkesboro in the FaithFest 250 on Saturday, and often battled for the lead with teammate and eventual winner Chandler Smith. It marked the eighth time in 15 races that he’s finished inside the top-six this season.
His success this year has folks wondering: Is Riggs ready to make the leap up to NASCAR’s top-level Cup Series?
Riggs was coy about his plans for 2027 when asked by SiriusXM recently, saying, “I’m working hard every day to try to make sure that happens, but no new news yet.”
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As NASCAR’s silly season ramps up, a lot of eyes are on Riggs with questions swirling about whether or not he’ll fill one of the open seats in the Cup Series. Meanwhile, winning a championship in the Truck Series is a real possibility for him, leaving Riggs to balance both short-term goals and long-term aspirations.
“Well, all I can do is impress the right people,” Riggs said. “From everybody I talk to, all I can do is just keep doing what I’m doing – getting poles and winning races and trying to impress. That’s all I got to worry about in a nutshell. Hopefully the right opportunity will come to me.”
A native of Bahama, North Carolina – just north of the state’s Research Triangle – Riggs grew up closer to college basketball rivalries along Tobacco Road than he did in stockcar racing’s capital of Charlotte. But his father Scott was a NASCAR driver, winning nine races across the Truck Series and second-tier O’Reilly Auto Parts Series in a 15-year career. And so, the son pursued the father’s footsteps.
Riggs cut his teeth in racing by competing in late model stockcars, finding early success in the zMAX CARS Tour, a series that is co-owned by former Cup Series drivers Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton. Trackhouse Racing’s Justin Marks is also a co-owner, as is Speedway Motorsports CEO Marcus Smith.
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Beginning at the age of 14, Riggs raced in the CARS Tour for several years, winning six races and finishing in the top five of the season point standings twice. Other alums of the series who have gone on to success in NASCAR include Zane Smith and Corey Heim.
“It’s probably more competitive than ARCA, at the moment,” Riggs said. “I think that running in the CARS Tour, being a threat for a champion there, is an easy pipeline straight to the Truck Series like I did myself. That’s where I learned how to race, that’s where my race craft came from … To win one of those races, it shows that you’re a pretty good racecar driver. You’re not a fluke.”
Riggs broke into the Truck Series in 2022 and notched a seventh-place finish in his debut at the Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park in Brownsburg, Indiana. After spot starts here and there in trucks and the O’Reilly Series with various teams, he landed a full-time ride in the Truck Series in 2024 with Front Row Motorsports. He won races at Milwaukee and Bristol on his way to claiming the Rookie of the Year – a year in which he also graduated from UNC-Charlotte with a degree in mechanical engineering.
Across his four wins this season, Riggs has often finished ahead of Cup Series drivers who have come down for reps in the series. At Charlotte, he won ahead of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Connor Zilisch. At Nashville, he was in front of Ross Chastain. At Naval Base Coronado, he won a race that featured Jimmie Johnson and Jamie McMurray.
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On Saturday at North Wilkesboro, Riggs finished ahead of Shane van Gisbergen, Chase Elliott, Christopher Bell and Carson Hocevar.
“I love it when the (Cup Series) guys come down. It always just adds more competition. It adds more eyeballs to the series. It’s a baseline for our regular season guys,” Riggs said. “You can run against them and hopefully outrun them and impress people. At the same time, it’s difficult for us guys racing for points because those guys don’t care if they wreck out.
“It’s kind of a benchmark to say, ‘OK, are these truck guys the real deal or not? If they can race with the Cup guys, if they can even outrun them, they are the real deal.'”
Layne Riggs, driver of the #34 Ford, waves to fans as he walks onstage during driver intros prior to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series North Carolina Education Lottery 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 22, 2026 in Concord, North Carolina.
With 10 races remaining in the Truck Series season, Riggs and his No. 34 Ford for Front Row Motorsports look like the favorite to win the championship. After North Wilkesboro, Riggs still has a 59-point lead over Kaden Honeycutt atop the standings.
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Front Row also fields three Cup Series cars, piloted this season by Todd Gilliland, Zane Smith and Noah Gragson. The team announced last week that Gilliland – who has advanced to the Final Four of the In-Season Challenge – will return next season. And last October, Front Row announced a multi-year extension for Smith.
That leaves Gragson, who – while popular amongst fans – is 30th in points, has just one top-10 finish this year and has never won a Cup Series race in four full-time seasons. Gragson recently said on the Dale Jr. Download that he didn’t punch Kevin Magnussen after the race at Naval Base Coronado because, “I’m trying to get a job next year and there is a lot more consequences than a monetary fine.”
Hypothetically, should Gragson move away from Front Row, that could create an open seat for Riggs.
For now, that’s all in the distant future. Riggs’ focus remains on running well in his No. 34 Ford Truck.
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“I feel like I’m more confident as a race car driver,” Riggs said. “I don’t have to take big risks anymore to get wins. I feel like I can just kind of sit back, let our natural speed take over, and kind of let the races come to us a little bit more.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Layne Riggs balances NASCAR Cup aspirations, while chasing Truck Series title
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