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Layne Riggs upsets the Trucks playoff regulars; standings remain tight
By Matt Weaver,
6 days ago
Layne Riggs and the Front Row Motorsports No. 38 team are dominating the NASCAR Truck Series Playoffs but there is just one problem.
He didn’t qualify for the Round of 10.
It appears they took that personally because Riggs has opened the seven-race gauntlet with a clean sweep of both the Milwaukee Mile and Bristol on Thursday night. Riggs, who is likely back at Front Row next season, is showing why he should be considered a championship threat as soon as the season begins.
This is a campaign that has been dominated by Corey Heim and Christian Eckes and Riggs has successfully taken the fight to them two races in a row. Riggs says it’s more incumbent on the championship contenders to be mindful of him than the other way around.
“I’m going to race a certain way, and I did that tonight, aggressive, hard and I don’t care if you’re a playoff driver or not, I’m going to race you the same way, clean, hard and respectful racing,” Riggs said. “If they want to tango with me, that’s on them.
“They have to think about the pros and cons of that. They are running for the points and they have to think, ‘hey, I’m running second and it’s probably not worth it to push Layne, battle Layne or sneak to his outside on a late restart.’
“I don’t have that mindset this year and I think we all have a good understanding.”
It was indeed ‘clean, hard and respectful racing,’ and no one up front paid any consequences for it.
Corey Heim, Nick Sanchez and Christian Eckes have advanced to the second round no matter what happens next weekend at Kansas Speedway.
Ty Majeski dodged a bullet.
He was awful in practice, made a late session adjustment to put the fifth fastest time on the board but then only qualified 19th. A unapproved adjustment sent them to the rear of the field and it was grind, at a track where passing is a challenge, just to get to P7 by the end.
“I’ll stay out of why we started in the back,” Majeski said. “It was just a miscommunication. We went from, we’re coming to Bristol, a place I’ve won and think we have a shot to win. We didn’t unload well, got the penalty, so now our mind has to shift to ‘how do we maximize.’
Majeski said the last thing they needed was a four point night and they ended up finishing eight and nearly locking themselves in.
“A top-15 was our goal when we started the race so I’m happy with this,” he said.
Rajah Caruth is second guessing the decisions that he believes cost him this race but it was also a really productive points day that went from -3 to +35.
“I wasn’t gonna fence him (Heim), but we were close,” Caruth continued. “But yeah, just fun racing with Corey and Christian. They’re the perennial contenders, so to be in the mix of those guys all night was really good. Just replaying what I could have done different those last two or three restarts.”
But this was a good night, right?
“Yeah.”
He said it with a long face.
“Just wanted to win. I mean, that’s it,” Caruth said. “I don’t know how else to really describe it. Just wish that was us. But really happy for Layne. You know, he deserves it. He puts in the work and happy to see him succeed.”
Grant Enfinger struggled to just race near the top-15 all night. He left a lot of points on the table as a result for the second race in a row.
13th and 17th.
“Just embarrassed by these two performances,” Enfinger said. “I thought we had speed and I thought I just kinda slipped in qualifying but just kept losing grip as we went.
“Felt okay before lap 10 and then we were in trouble. I was just chasing it. It was driving me more than I was driving it. Jeff made some good cas but we just couldn’t go anywhere.”
Deapite the performance, Enfinger gained on the cutline because Daniel Dye and Ben Rhodes had awful days but that was no consolation.
“We had a dreadful day as well,” Enfinger said. “No, that’s no consolation for me. Performance wise, you know, these two races, we don’t deserve to be in the playoffs.
“Take our eight races before that and we were one of the better trucks out there. So I’m just frustrated that we haven’t had the performance these past two races. As far as I’m concerned, we’re worried about ourselves. We need to go to Kansas and win our way into the next round.”
Rhodes was just slow.
“we just unloaded bad on the hauler,” Rhodes said. “We werent able to fix it with the short practice. Packer, track bar, wedge, all the tools available to us. Nothing responded.”
How does he feel about Kansas?
“I’m always hopeful we can win but the stats say otherwise this year,” Rhodes said. “I can tell you we’re bringing a truck that has a new body build for us. We’ve done some stuff that can complement our package. It’s the first time we’ve run it and I’m hopeful it will make a difference for us.”
Dye entered this race above the cutline and was in the mix but cut two tires.
“We probably had top-10 speed today and ran something over and lost the right rear,” Dye said.
Kaden Honeycutt ran into the back of him and felt like more could have been done to have not spun. But Honeycutt is also racing for the owners championship.
He was just frustrated.
Dye was too.
“Sucks that Kaden got caught up in it,” Dye said. “I was trying to get to the bottom, get out of the way. As far as I understood. I was clear by about a straightaway, and I would imagine I probably just slowed down so much when the right rear popped that I just lost all that gap and just smoked him.
“So that’s on me. I should’ve been, I don’t know, maybe he could see me going down but I could gave stayed up. I was just trying to get off the race track.”
Dye said he didn’t want to know what the points situation was but seven is manageable at Kansas.
“I feel really good about our mile and a halfs,” Dye said. “I have a pole, some top-10s. Let’s go win the race as far as I’m concerned. Let’s go do it.”
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