With his victory at Nashville Superspeedway over the weekend, Front Row Motorsports’ Layne Riggs moves into the championship lead for the first time in his career after a dramatic 38-point swing in the points standings.
It’s a tough setback for Tricon Garage driver Kaden Honeycutt, whose 27th-place showing at Nashville snapped a four-race streak of top-five finishes and dropped him to second in the championship. The 22-year-old is still enjoying a career year and has been ranked first or second in points for the past eight races in only his second fulltime season.
The Truck Series wraps up a stretch of six consecutive race weekends at the two-mile Michigan International Speedway in Saturday afternoon’s DQS Solutions and Staffing 250 presented by Precision Vehicle Logistics (1:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Halmar Friesen Racing’s owner-driver Stewart Friesen is the defending race winner.
Riggs has won the last two races (at Charlotte and Nashville) coming to Michigan and during this six-race stretch since May 1, the 23-year-old second generation NASCAR star has a series-best 157 laps led and amazing 6.4 average finishing position.
“You can’t let the highs get you too high or the lows get you too low, so every weekend is a new challenge,” said Riggs, driver of the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford. “We were kind of mediocre at Michigan last year, so I think we’ve got some things to work on, but we’ve been working in the Ford Racing simulator a lot. They give us all the great tools to go fast and work to be better.”
The Truck Series competition has been strong all season and Michigan looks to be no different. The track boasts a strong history of dramatic outcomes. Only three tracks have had more last lap passes for a win than Michigan (three) – Talladega, Ala. (six), Texas (four) and Daytona (four). A final lap pass for victory has happened four times already this season – a series record through 11 races.
Only seven races remain to set the 10-driver Chase field and not only is the top spot in the points still very much up for grabs with Riggs and Honeycutt leading the way, but positions eight (Tyler Ankrum) through 11th (Jake Garcia) in the standings are separated by only eight points.
One thing for sure is that Michigan has been one of the most unpredictable venues on the schedule. The last three races at the two-miler have ended in overtime and three of the last six races were decided on a last-lap pass.
Four NASCAR Cup Series regulars, including Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Ross Chastain, Christopher Bell and Michigan native Carson Hocevar are entered in the truck race. Also noteworthy, Cleetus McFarland will make his second truck series start of the season driving the No. 4 Niece Motorsports Chevy and Spencer Davis will return to the Truck Series for the first time since 2023 driving the No. 5 Tricon Garage Toyota.
Practice is at 9:30 a.m. Saturday followed by Kennametal Pole Qualifying at 10:35 a.m. Luke Fenhaus started from pole position last year.
–NASCAR Wire Service–