By AMANDA VINCENT
Layne Riggs swept Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway race weekends in 2026 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series competition. He won his second race of the season there Friday night in the EcoSave 200. It was his seventh win, overall, of the year.
“I love that,” Riggs said. “Let’s go guys; let’s go! Thank you everybody. We really needed that one. Thank you for showing out tonight. Man, that was a hell of a battle there at the end with me and the 11 (Kaden Honeycutt). That was a lot of fun, so thank you to everybody on this.”
Christian Eckes finished second, Kaden Honeycutt was third, Bayley Currey fourth, and Chandler Smith rounded out the top-five.
Honeycutt led a race-high 85 laps of the 134-lap race, and Riggs led 47 laps. Riggs took his race-winning lead from Honeycutt on lap 128.
“I thought it was awesome, too,” Honeycutt said of his battle with Riggs. “When we went down to (turn) one, I was trying to decide bottom or top, and I was trying to defend it. I don’t know how the heck I saved that. It was pretty wild. Seeing the replay, I really wish – I shouldn’t have been air blocking him as much as I did. Just took away what I was trying to do and focused on him too much and should have just ran my own race. I was really good there at the bottom of (turn) three and four. I hadn’t run the top all day through three and four. I got too free. I wasn’t up close enough to the wall and just got free. I really wasn’t expecting that, but I think that was mostly from the speedy dry. I think we had a good truck today. Me and him (Riggs) were just swapping back and forth, and as far as adjustment standpoint, I felt like we were getting there; just didn’t know what I needed to go faster. We will digest it. Definitely hate that I lost second, there, but good stage points. Good stage win today, but just got to clean it up on my end. I feel like if I didn’t have that happen, I would have been alright. Thank you Safelite, Toyota Racing, TRICON Garage, Mobil 1, Scott Zipadelli (crew chief) – my whole 11 team. Everyone that supports it. I definitely want to win, so we move on and go to Phoenix.”
Eckes passed Honeycutt for second on lap 129 for a second-straight second-place finish.
Riggs had taken the lead from Honeycutt on lap 81, but Honeycutt retook the position by getting off pit road first during a lap-98 caution for Stewart Friesen, the first caution of the race for an on-track incident.
The yellow flag waved, again, for Kris Wright on lap 113. The biggest incident of the race came on the lap-118 restart from the Wright restart when Connor Mosack, Andres Perez de Lara, Leland Honeyman, Rajah Caruth, Gio Ruggiero and Timmy Hall were involved in a multi-truck crash.
That crash led to a red flag for track cleanup.
Riggs won the 30-lap opening stage with Honeycutt in second.
Riggs, after starting the race in the 13th position, took the lead from Honeycutt on lap 15.
Honeycutt started the race third and challenged pole sitter Mosack from the green flag. Honeycutt took command of the lead on lap four.
Honeycutt won stage two at lap 60 with Riggs in second.
Honeycutt took the lead by being first off pit road after stage one. Riggs, meanwhile, was fifth out of the pits after a slow stop.
Riggs got up to second by passing Caruth on lap 52.
Honeycutt maintained his lead on pit road after stage two. Smith was second off pit road but was assessed a pit-road penalty.
Daniel Hemric finished the race in the sixth position. Landen Lewis finished seventh, Perez de Lara was eighth, Tyler Ankrum ninth and Justin Haley 10th.
