By AMANDA VINCENT
Jake Garcia claimed his first-career NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race win Thursday night at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway in the UNOH 250, his 94th race in the series.
“I’ve been pushing for it for 94 starts, but I’m really proud of all my guys,” Garcia said. “They brought an amazing truck tonight. It was good today, but qualifying got rained out. We had a good strategy that helped us come from the back, got some track position and started stage three with the lead and kind of took off from there. We had some adversity on that last restart, but, fortunately, the truck was fast enough to overcome that and just really proud of this moment.”
The Bristol race was the first race of the 2026 Truck Series Chase, but title contenders were locked out of the top-five of the finishing order. Bayley Currey finished a career-best second in his first race of the season.
“I’ve still got it, I guess,” Currey said. “Just huge, huge thank you to everyone at TRICON, Toyota; just a great opportunity and glad we were able to make the most of it. I thought I was going to fumble it, there, at the end, but we were able to fight, there, and bring it home p2. Obviously, wanted to win, but coming off the couch, I’m alright with it.”
Stewart Friesen was third, Justin Haley fourth and Tristan McKee fifth.
Garcia led 104 laps of the 250-lap race. Layne Riggs led a race-high 135 laps, but he went a couple of laps down when he pitted with a loose right-rear wheel. He made another unscheduled stop on lap 232.
The first caution for cause came out on lap 169 for Ty Majeski, Kris Wright and Nick Leitz. The race was red-flagged to clean-up fluid from Caden Kvapil’s truck.
The yellow flag also waved for debris on lap 213. Kaden Honeycutt pitted with a loose right-rear wheel during that caution.
Friesen took the lead on the lap-220 restart. But Garcia retook the lead on lap 230.
Riggs won the 65-lap opening stage. Honeycutt was second and Riggs’ Front Row Motorsports’ teammate Chandler Smith third at stage-end.
Riggs started on the pole and Smith alongside on the front row. Riggs led the entire stage.
Christian Eckes pitted on lap 43 after he sustained damage from contact with Grant Enfinger. Eckes was, then, penalized for too many crew members over the pit wall.
Riggs completed a stage sweep when he won stage two at lap 130. And like the first stage, Honeycutt and Smith were second and third, respectively.
And also like stage one, Riggs led the entire stage.
Garcia was up front for a restart just past the halfway point of the race after a two-tire stop. Riggs restarted sixth after an issue changing tires on the right side of his truck. Smith was in the back after a penalty for speeding on pit road.
Gio Ruggiero was the best-finishing Chase driver in sixth. William Sawalich finished seventh. Chase drivers Honeycutt, Majeski and Enfinger rounded out the top-10.
