Layne Riggs upset the playoff field after taking the lead in stage three and dominating the rest of the way to take his first career win in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series in the LiUNA! 175 at The Milwaukee Mile Riggs led the final 53 laps to win in his 23rd career start over the polesitter and fellow Ford driver Ty Majeski by 1.547 seconds.
“I don’t even know how to describe it,” Riggs said. “It’s awesome. Thank you to Bob Jenkins, Jerry Freeze for letting me drive this truck. It’s been no surprise that we’ve had a terrible year. It’s been an awful year. I’ve learned so much though. I went through my rookie season, and after the start, I thought there was no way we were going to get a win. We were going to do the best we can, but we’re just learning for next year. I knew in practice, this thing was pretty awesome.”
Riggs celebrated so hard that he dislocated his shoulder while he was pumping his fist up on the roof of his truck.
“I dislocated my shoulder I was celebrating so hard,” Riggs said. “It hurts like a mug, but hey, it was worth it. It’s not the first time it’s happened to me, but it ain’t going to slow me down.”
Majeski led a majority of his 46 laps early and was able to take the lead briefly at the start of stage three; however, once Riggs passed him, he was unable to get back to the Front Row Motorsports No. 38 and settled in second for the most of the stage.
“I think the fact that we missed it as bad as we did and we were as close as we were is super encouraging,” Majeski said. “That means we have a lot of speed in our trucks. It’s just up to us to hit the package right… (I’m) super proud of the run we’ve had in the last three races.”
Christian Eckes led the most laps on Sunday (Aug. 25) at 71 of the 175 laps, won stage two, and collected a playoff point. But then Eckes lost the lead on the stage three restart to finish third. Nick Sanchez and Taylor Gray completed the top five.
Tyler Ankrum, Corey Heim, Daniel Dye, Ben Rhodes and Matt Crafton rounded out the top 10.
Grant Enfinger and Rajah Caruth finished the lowest out of the 10 playoff drivers in 13th and 18th, respectively.
After Eckes passed Majeski on lap 43, he went on to dominate in stages one and two.
Eckes then lost the lead to Majeski on the stage three restart, and Riggs, who had a fast truck in the short run, was able to get ahead of Majeski shortly after and gapped him by a second.
Stage one was relatively quiet until near the end when Jayson Alexander, making his Truck Series debut, hit the wall at the end of the stage to bring out the only caution for incident.
Then, all of the leaders elected to pit in preparation for a one-lap shootout for stage one. However, NASCAR added one extra lap, allowing Ty Dillon, who stayed out on track, to win the stage over Eckes, who was leading before the caution.
Heim, who led the points entering Milwaukee, ran into early troubles as he sped on pit road during the first caution. He entered pit road third, but since his penalty was prior to the end of stage one, he fell out of gaining valuable stage points and failed to reach the top 10 by the end of stage two.
“I got behind on my gearing approaching pit road,” Heim told Frontstretch. “By the time I caught up to what rpm I needed to be running at, I was already deep into pit road and, obviously, just blew it there. So, that’s my responsibility to make sure I’m accounting for that, and overall, (I) just lacked speed in general today, certainly put us behind the eight ball there, didn’t do us any favors either. So, just got to be better as a whole.”
By the end of the race, Heim was able to beat Dye in a side-by-side finish for seventh.
Truck Milwaukee Results
Race two of the Truck Series Round of 10 will be at Bristol Motor Speedway on Thursday, Sept. 19 at 8 p.m. ET, with coverage provided by FOX Sports 1.
About the author
Wyatt Watson has followed NASCAR closely since 2007. He joined Frontstretchas a journalist in February 2023 after serving in the United States Navy for five years as an Electronic Technician Navigation working on submarines. Wyatt writes breaking NASCAR news and contributes to columns such as Friday Faceoff and 2-Headed Monster. Wyatt also contributes to Frontstretch's social media and serves as an at-track reporter, collecting exclusive content for Frontstretch.
Wyatt Watson can be found on Twitter @WyattGametime
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