Layne Riggs now has 10 wins as a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver, with half coming this season. Riggs was unstoppable at IRP, leading almost every lap (198 of 200) en route to a dominant victory over Connor Mosack, who earned a career-best finish in second.
The victory also made Riggs a back-to-back winner at IRP, leading 160 of 200 laps there last year.
“They are just statement wins,” said Riggs. “I mean, man, what a truck. I was on cruise control for so much for the race. The #7 kept me honest there. The last 15 laps of the race with the traffic there, I was running as hard as I could and I couldn’t get away from him. I knew we had a pretty good gap. Great job to my spotter, Josh. He did a great job today navigating me through traffic. Had that one mishap on the restart, just spun my tires really, really bad. When you get these tires spinning, they are so hard to recover, so thank you to the guys behind me for not turning me around. I know that could have easily happened. I’m not sure where Chandler finishes, but he had a good run as well. He got it last week, but we had to flip the script and do it again this weekend.”
Ty Majeski was third, Chandler Smith fourth, and Nick Sanchez fifth. Stewart Friesen, Kaden Honeycutt, Gavan Boschele (on debut), Tyler Ankrum, and Michael Christopher Jr. filled out the remainder of the top ten.
Stages 1 and 2
Watch: In the fast Layne! No. 34 driver sweeps the stages
There was simply nothing the field could do against Riggs in the No. 34 FRM entry. He led from pole and dominated the caution-free opening stage. He lapped all the way up to 15th by the time the stage ended, with no pressure from behind.
Eckes had a mechanical gremlin strike during the stage break, which was later identified as an alternator issue. He later returned to the race, many laps down.
Riggs continued to dominate, while his teammate Smith went back-and-forth with Mosack over the runner-up spot.
Riggs once again lapped up inside the top 15, sweeping the stages.
Stage 3
Watch: Landen Lewis gets collected by Daniel Hemric in wreck
The first and only natural caution of the race came with 63 laps to go. Daniel Hemric made contact with another truck while trying to move to the inside, spinning. He slid up the track, collecting Landen Lewis and completely destroying both trucks. Lewis’ truck also briefly caught fire.
There was a red flag for cleanup, but when the trucks went back rolling, Honeycutt opted to pit for fresher tires in a strategy gamble. Mosack briefly closed to within two seconds in traffic but never mounted a serious challenge.
Grant Enfinger and Andres Perez tangled right in front of Riggs, and while Enfinger was smoking as he limped around the track, NASCAR kept the race green as Riggs cruised to a dominant victory.
In the battle to make the Chase, Friesen holds the 10th and final spot, just eight points ahead of Ankrum.
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