NASCAR
Layne Riggs Wins Truck Race at IRP in Back-to-Back Seasons, Fifth Win of 2026
BROWNSBURG, Ind. – The man to beat coming into Friday at Indianapolis Raceway Park left no stone unturned. Layne Riggs kept the No. 34 Ford out front for almost all of 200 laps around the bullring. The Front Row Motorsports team picked up a fifth win on the year. Only further extending his championship lead, Riggs appears in perfect form for a fast-approaching Chase run.
From the pole, the No. 34 led wire-to-wire in Stage 1. Riggs was two laps away from being perfect across both stages, taking max-points across the opening stint. These stage wins also extended Riggs’ points lead to a triple-digit gap over Kaden Honeycutt.
Aside from a brief red flag for crash cleanup, the final run to the checkers remained an uninterrupted Layne Riggs invitational. Just shy of 60 laps to go, Daniel Hemric and Landen Lewis tangled, triggering the night’s lone on-track caution.
Wrong place, wrong time for the No. 45 of @landenlewis99. pic.twitter.com/fnTw5Q624T
— NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Trucks (@NASCAR_Trucks) July 25, 2026
Driver No. 34 now has five wins on the season with another wire-to-wire win from IRP. Riggs has won this race in back-to-back seasons, and carries peak momentum ahead.
“I think they’re just statement wins, man what a truck” Riggs said. “I was on cruise control there for so much of that race. The 7 [Connor Mosack] kept me honest there at the end though. I was honestly running as hard as I could in traffic those last 15-ish laps. I couldn’t get away from him. But I knew we had a pretty good gap, so great job everyone. Spotter Josh [Williams] did a great job navigating me through traffic. That one mishap on the restart, I just spun the tires really really bad. When you get these tires spinning, they’re so hard to recover. Thank you to the guys behind us not turning me around, I know that easily could have happened.”
“I’m not sure where Chandler [Smith] finished, had a good run for him as well. He got it last week and we had to flip the script and do it again this week. Man what a race truck, these guys make my job easy. I think we’re going to keep carrying that momentum with this statement win, I think we’re the ones to beat for sure.”
“This is the same truck that’s won both of our Bristol and IRP races, so I think its winning percentage is over 50%. It’s just awesome to be able to bring that back with the same setup, I didn’t want to mess ourselves up.”
Closing in on Riggs in the final laps was Connor Mosack, who earns a career-best runner-up result in the Spire Motorsports No. 7. Ty Majeski, Chandler Smith, and Nick Sanchez were the top-five. Stewart Friesen, Kaden Honeycutt, Gavan Boschele, Tyler Ankrum, and Michael Christopher, Jr., were the top-10.
Thanks to finishing fourth, Chandler Smith locked up his Chase berth early. Also joining Smith in this club after IRP are Christian Eckes and Gio Ruggiero. Riggs now leads title rival Kaden Honeycutt by 99 points in the standings with two regular season races left. Friesen also padded himself a bit on the cut line battle after IRP.
Updated @NASCAR_Trucks Chase standings with two regular season races left. @CSmith_Racing is now locked in, joining Riggs and Honeycutt.
Cut line has Friesen in by 8 points over Ankrum. #TSport200 #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/kBLkCt667C
— Peter Stratta (@peterstratta) July 25, 2026
Craftsman Truck Series competitors will return to action in three weeks from Richmond Raceway. The Commonwealth track will host the penultimate regular season event for the Truckers, marking a third-straight short track. Drama will be high under the lights on Friday, August 14 at 7:30 p.m. ET on FS1, NRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Written by Peter Stratta
Be sure to follow us on Twitter/X
Be sure to follow the writer on Twitter/X
Photo Credit to Justin Casterline/Getty Images
