In a Nutshell
Last year, Ty Majeski dominated the race at Richmond Raceway, only to lose the lead and win late to Carson Hocevar.
This year, Majeski reversed the roles.
He wasn’t the dominant truck of the night, but he was able to take the lead away from Grant Enfinger, who led the most laps on the night and held on through a chaotic final restart to win his second straight race of the year at Richmond.
Majeski exited the Olympic break as the defending winner, having nabbed his first win of the season at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park on July 19. Now, he enters the playoffs with two straight wins and all the momentum heading into the seven-race dash for the title.
Speaking of playoffs, the 10-driver field was set in the regular season finale, with Christian Eckes clinching the regular season title and Daniel Dye racing his way into the playoffs, grabbing the final spot in the field.
All that and more happened in a chaotic race at Richmond.
The Top Truckers at Richmond Raceway
Winner: Ty Majeski
Polesitter, Stage 1 Winner: Christian Eckes
Stage 2 Winner, Most Laps Led (98 of 250 laps): Grant Enfinger
Biggest Mover: Stefan Parsons (started 29th, finished 11th)
Rookie of the Race: Layne Riggs
Top Storylines of the Race
- With a 37-driver entry list, that meant one driver found themselves without a spot in the 36-truck field. Unfortunately, that driver was Trey Hutchens. It’s his first failure to qualify this season. He successfully qualified for his two previous attempts this season at Bristol Motor Speedway and North Wilkesboro Speedway.
- Matt Mills saw his race and any slim playoff chances come to an end on lap 56, when a flat tire caused him to slam the wall in turns 3 and 4. The damage proved too extreme, as it ended up being the last lap the No. 42 would turn for the evening.
- Stage three saw a slew of cautions, kicked off by a big crash that involved Dean Thompson, Mason Massey, Keith McGee, and more. From there, four more cautions slowed the race’s pace.
The Winning Move
Under the third-to-last caution of the race, Corey Heim, who had largely been a non-factor for the lead, took the chance to pit and put on his final fresh set of tires. As tires make a big difference at Richmond, he found himself flying through the field, eventually tracking down Enfinger and taking the lead from him.
The downside for Heim was that if another caution came out, he’d only have scuffed tires to put on while the rest of the field had brand new sticker tires, and his gamble for the win would be all for naught.
Well of course, the caution came out for Kaden Honeycutt spinning, forcing the field to come down pit road.
In the scramble to pass Heim and jostle for the lead, Majeski found himself back at the front for the first time since early in stage one. Then the caution came out yet again after Connor Zilisch crashed, setting up an eight-lap shootout.
Enfinger soared under Majeski into turn 1, a surprising move considering the high line was the preferred lane on restarts. However, he wasn’t quite clear of Majeski and nearly cleared himself and got turned. He then shot down the racetrack into the path of Eckes trying to save his truck. That opened the door for Layne Riggs and even Taylor Gray to try to steal a win.
Somehow, they all managed to save their trucks without crashing. Majeski escaped with the lead, and while Enfinger and Riggs battled behind him, he ran away with the win.
Championship Rundown
The playoff field is officially set. Eckes locked up the regular season title after stage 1, as expected, which gives him an extra 15 playoff points heading into the postseason. Despite this, his primary rival Heim enters the playoffs as the first overall seed with 41 playoff points.
As a refresher, the Truck Series playoffs are a little different than the Cup and Xfinity Series playoffs. The seven-race chase for the championship will see two drivers eliminated after three races to make the Round of 8. Then four drivers will be eliminated after three more races to complete the Championship 4.
So as it stands, Ben Rhodes and Dye start the playoffs below the cut line due to lack of playoff points compared to their competitors. Meanwhile Heim and Eckes, surprise, surprise, are already in position to point their way into the Round of 8.
Rookie Report
Riggs continues to lead the charge for the rookies on the short tracks, as he earned another fifth-place finish, good enough to be Rookie of the Race yet again.
A shoutout is in order to CARS Tour Late Model Stock Car Point Leader Connor Hall, who managed to finish 10th in his debut.
No. 1 – William Sawalich (22nd)
No. 7 – Connor Zilisch (29th)
No. 20 – Jerry Bohlman (36th)
No. 38 – Layne Riggs (fifth)
No. 46 – Thad Moffitt (33rd)
No. 66 – Conner Jones (31st)
No. 90 – Justin Carroll (27th)
No. 91 – Connor Hall (10th)
One Big Takeaway from This Race
Can Riggs play playoff spoiler?
While Front Row Motorsports missed the playoffs for the first time since its inaugural truck season in 2020, Riggs has shown measured improvement since the season began.
Of course, his bread and butter is the short tracks, as that’s what Riggs is most accustomed to based on his upbringing as a short track racer. His career-best finish is third, which came at the 0.625-mile short track of North Wilkesboro Speedway.
The last two races of the regular season were short tracks, in which Riggs scored back-to-back fifth-place finishes. In fact, Riggs has three straight fifth-place finishes on tracks of 1.25-miles or less.
That could play right into Riggs’ wheelhouse in the playoffs, as four of the seven races in the playoffs are short tracks; two of them begin the playoffs, and the other two end the playoffs. One track, Martinsville Speedway, is one that Riggs has visited once before this year, finishing 15th.
It could be possible that Riggs is the non-playoff driver to sneak a win in the playoffs. It’s no secret that the playoff drivers take over and pretty much hog the spotlight from other feel-good stories that might prevail in the final seven races.
A win is not only possible for Riggs, but probable, based on his stats on short tracks this year. And that could give him and his No. 38 team a huge momentum boost as they shift their efforts to 2025.
Talkin’ Truckers
Joe Shear Jr. (Majeski’s crew chief), Rhodes (seventh), Hall (10th), and Rajah Caruth (17th) break down their evenings:
“Got ran over with Truck Series chaos there” – Enfinger (fourth) feels he needed a clean restart to win the race:
Riggs (fifth) and the Brothers Gray, Taylor (third) and Tanner (12th) break down their nights, with Tanner expressing his disappointment in missing the playoffs:
Dye (eighth) reacts to making the playoffs for the first time in his career:
Zilisch (29th), in his oval debut, shares what he learned and addresses the crash that took him out of the race:
Mills (35th) says there was no warning of the tire going down that took him out of the race:
Paint Scheme of the Race
Hill Motorsports arrived at Richmond with a beast to unleash.
Timmy Hill drove a tiger-striped red truck, complete with a bright yellow No. 56. With no primary sponsorship, Hill and his team slapped decals of a link to the team’s online merch store on the quarter panels and rear of the truck, while sporting the team logo on the hood.
This scheme looked incredible under the Richmond lights; perhaps it can convince a sponsor to plaster its logos on such a good-looking truck. Hill qualified 24th and finished 19th in this hot rod.
Next Stop
We’re kicking off the playoffs in America’s Dairyland.
The Craftsman Truck Series goes back on hiatus for a week before heading to the Milwaukee Mile on Aug. 25 for the first race of the playoffs. Not only is this race unique in that it opens the playoffs, but it’s the lone race of the year where the trucks take over the Sunday spotlight.
With Cup and Xfinity competing at Daytona International Speedway on Friday night and Saturday night (Aug. 23-24), the Trucks get their day in the Wisconsin sun on Sunday in a doubleheader with the ARCA Menards Series.
Enfinger is the defending winner of the race.
Coverage for the LiUNA! 175 at the Milwaukee Mile begins at 4 p.m. ET on Sunday, Aug. 25, just after the ARCA race at 1 p.m. ET. Television coverage can be found on FOX Sports 1, while Motor Racing Network continues its season-long radio coverage of the Truck Series.
Anthony Damcott joined Frontstretch in March 2022. Currently, he is an editor and co-authors Fire on Fridays (Fridays); he is also the primary Truck Series reporter/writer and serves as an at-track reporter, among many other duties he takes on for the site. A proud West Virginia Wesleyan College alum from Akron, Ohio, Anthony is now a grad student. He is a theatre actor and fight-choreographer-in-training in his free time.
You can keep up with Anthony by following @AnthonyDamcott on X.