The difference between Kaden Honeycutt and Kaden Honeycutt is 20 points with just Homestead-Miami Speedway remaining but both feel like next Friday is basically winner-take-all.
It’s a 20-point difference from first to second place on any given weekend so that’s why Riggs was seemingly thrilled with a third-place on Friday at Martinsville Speedway because he effectively closed the gap to within the tipping point.
“All positivity,” Riggs said. “We’re going to go win it. With this format having 20 bonus points, it’s pretty much a winner-take-all again, in my opinion. Instead of having four, it’s two this time, so we’re going to go win. That’s all I can go do. Go win. At least go match him in stage points.
“We can’t have a bad qualifying effort or have something bad on pit road. We’ve just got to go there and execute. As you saw tonight, he’s not as dominant as some people think. He had a little issue that kind of helped us out as well, but it would have been nice to win for me. We would have been in the plus right now.”
That Riggs was so ecstatic was kind of a surprise because he swept both stages and led the most laps but got beat by teammate Chandler Smith. Riggs wasn’t expecting a handout from his teammate and didn’t get one either.
“I mean, he’s not supposed to lift for me,” Riggs said. “I’m proud of Chandler. He did exactly what he’s supposed to do as a teammate. I just wish I could have been better on the restarts. I know they had a little bit more air (pressure) because every restart, he was able to fire off faster then he would fade so I knew that he was going to be better on the restart.
“I feel like I got a good launch. I just got really loose in one and two. I’ve been loose every restart. I knew it was going to happen. I tried to prep my tire as best I could, but I was kind of shooting myself in the foot and taking the bottom. But like I said, it was not worth the risk of taking the top and potentially getting wrecked.”
But still, Honeycutt faded to 14th on that final run, and a win would have completely flipped the standings altogether. Instead of 20 behind, he could have been three up, but in his mind, there is no difference between the two.
“I mean, it’s 20 (points) to win and if everything goes well, I think everybody knows we’re going to finish 1-2,” Riggs said. “So if I can just stay within 20 during the first two stages, winner-take-all, that’s what it’s going to be. I think it’s going to be a heck of a show.”
Honeycutt would have preferred less of a ‘heck of a show’ and could have put this championship away with a better performance. He struggled to keep his truck in the top-five during the first half, and lost 10 points of his 43-point lead during the stages.
Then he lost the next 13 on the track.
“I felt like the only thing I lacked was rear grip tonight and then he put the truck in the racetrack and then I just couldn’t turn,” Honeycutt said. “So I don’t know, it was really funky-weird. I went there the last run and then all of a sudden it started turning and it drove off good. And that’s when I got to the outside of Layne and I was on the outside of Tristan and it felt like it came to life again.
“So I don’t know if it was (tire) heat cycles or something messing with my truck. So I don’t know. I feel like mechanically we had some other things going on, shock related and things like that. So yeah, thankfully we got bailed out and helped out there at the end and we go to Homestead 20 points, but we’re going to try to win.”
His crew chief, Scott Zipadelli, told Motorsport.com there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the truck.
“That’s Martinsville,” he said. “We practice at day and race at night. And that’s what missing it by just that much looks like.”
He agreed that the two red flags and resulting heat cycles did not help their truck.
Honeycutt also lost seven spots when going three-wide with Ty Majeski and Tristan McKee left him with the short stick.
“He was just trying to give Majeski room and I didn’t get the call that we were three-wide until it was too late,” Honeycutt said. “It’s a sucky deal, but I got bailed out there especially with Chandler winning that race. I’m really surprised he did that. Yeah, 20 points, but definitely not comfortable in Homestead next week.”
He was surprised that Smith took the lead from Riggs given that it was a 20-point swing but Smith was racing for himself, crew chief Jon Leonard and their No. 38 car.
“I have a responsibility to Bob Jenkins and my 38 team to go out there and win the race, but at the same time evaluate the situation, don’t do something that’s going to hurt the 34 detrimentally,” Smith said. “And we both got a really good restart, and (Majeski) got to my bumper at a perfect time, getting into (Turn) 1 and kind of lunged me forward.
“And yeah, the rest really was history after that. So he ended up third? So yeah, I think he still had a solid points day at least.”
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