NASCAR
Kaden Honeycutt Earns First NASCAR win in Hectic Watkins Glen Overtime
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – Inheriting the 2025 championship-winning team with TRICON Garage, a lot of pressure has been on Kaden Honeycutt all season. Race eight of the year from Watkins Glen was a coming out party for the Texan whose been so close to multiple victories. In a wild overtime sprint to the checkers, the No. 11 Toyota got the upper hand on Connor Zilisch and cruised to a maiden NASCAR win.
Brent Crews took off immediately from pole position in the opening laps. The TRICON Garage No. 1 would short pit Stage 1, however, giving this win to Daniel Hemric. Crews soon regained lost ground, but was muscled out of the way for the lead by his best friend Connor Zilisch. The Spire Motorsports No. 71 went onto lead every lap of Stage 2.
The final stage restarted with Ross Chastain out front, a position he would hold until a late restart penalty. This would hand the lead back to Zilisch, but a very brief green flag run saw Gio Ruggiero edge ahead. The No. 17 would suffer a similar restart jumping penalty with four laps left. Another caution for a turn one crash set Zilisch up alongside Kaden Honeycutt, who rallied from a pit road penalty after Stage 2.
Trouble on the restart as @LayneRiggs99 goes around, collecting @KrisOnNASCAR and others. pic.twitter.com/3W7kAn9lQh
— NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Trucks (@NASCAR_Trucks) May 8, 2026
On this final run to the checkers, the No. 11 had position exiting turn one and never looked back. In his 67th career start, Kaden Honeycutt is finally a NASCAR winner. This victory also came hours after Honeycutt also tamed the ARCA race at The Glen. Coming after countless near misses in Trucks, Honeycutt was extra appreciative of this win with his lights-out team.
“It feels amazing,” Honeycutt said. “Thank you Toyota, this whole 11 crew. Thank you Trent (Rodriguez, manager, driver development, TRD), Slugger (Labbe, Engineering Manager, Vehicle Support, TRD), Matt Puccia (competition director, TRICON Garage), Scott (Zipadelli, crew chief) that believed in me to take this truck over after Corey (Heim) drove it last year. It was just amazing. I can’t believe I just won at a road course. That’s just unbelievable. Thank you Safelite, Foster Love, Toyota, TRICON – everyone on this team. My pit crew is just the best pit crew in the pit area; just thank you so much.”
“We scrapped and clawed through that last run for sure man. Just thank you so much to Scott – this whole 11 team. Safelite, Foster Love, JBL, TRICON, Toyota Racing – for giving me everything we needed to be successful. Just a great Tundra today. I knew when I was running second to Zilisch, we had something to win with at the end. Last stage started – it is what it is – I had a penalty. Just drove my ass off to get through there and it paid off. Just a great job by these guys. They did such a perfect job for me all weekend. That is all I can ask for.”
Behind Honeycutt were road racing aces Zilisch and Shane van Gisbergen. Daniel Hemric and Chandler Smith completed the top five. Watkins Glen’s top-10 were rounded out by: AJ Allmendinger, Brent Crews, Mini Tyrrell, Brendan Queen, and Connor Mosack.
Thanks to this win, Honeycutt extends his championship standings lead, now at 29 points over Chandler Smith. Both of them will be ones to beat in next week’s race from Dover Motor Speedway. The Monster Mile welcomes Truckers back for the first time in six years with the ECOSAVE 200. The green flag flies Friday at 5 p.m. ET on FS1, NRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Part of All-Star Race weekend, Miles the Monster could be a very costly venture north for the Truck field.
Written by Peter Stratta
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Photo credit to Sean Gardner/Getty Images
