Layne Riggs did it again — and this time he was careful to not dislocate his right shoulder.
Riggs secured his second career NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series win at Bristol Motor Speedway on Thursday (Sept. 19), giving him back-to-back wins to play spoiler for playoff drivers.
“We’ve just learned so much with the truck,” Riggs told Fox Sports 1 in a post-race interview. “My crew chief Dylan (Cappello), he’s badass. He works so hard. We’re a young team. I think the oldest guy on our team probably averages in the 20s. It’s so great to get fifth, 10th, then go back-to-back in the playoffs.
“Man, I wish I was in the playoffs so bad. I think we’d be a real threat to win the championship.”
Riggs took the lead at the start of the final stage, launching from fourth to first past Corey Heim. Riggs then managed to hold off Heim and Rajah Caruth on a pair of late restarts.
On the final restart, the No. 38 Ford from Front Row Motorsports managed to build a one second lead over Heim before capturing the checkered flag.
“I wasn’t scared to throw it against the fence tonight,” Riggs said. “The track was so fun, I’m so glad they didn’t put the PJ1 on the track. So much fun. At the end you could run the bottom or the top and get equal lap times.”
Heim beat out Caruth by just a few inches and locked himself into the Round of 8 with the second-place finish and a stage win.
“I didn’t quite have it when the groove started to move around there,” Heim said. “Every time we got a heat cycle on the tires it just seemed to get tighter and tighter. Solid points in the playoffs is what you need.
Caruth finished third, just ahead of Christian Eckes, who also locked himself into the Round of 8. Nick Sanchez rounded out the top five and became the third driver to lock himself into the next round on points.
Matt Crafton, Chase Purdy, Ty Majeski, Stewart Friesen and Tyler Ankrum rounded out the top 10 finishers.
Majeski, who started in the rear of the field, will enter next week’s cutoff race 58 points above the cutline. Caruth has a 35-point cushion while Ankrum has 25 points on the final playoff spot.
Taylor Gray finished 12th and leaves Bristol seventh in the standings at 23 points to the good. Grant Enfinger sits eighth and on the bubble after a 17th place finish.
Enfinger leads Daniel Dye by eight points after an accident in the final stage forced Dye to spend several laps on pit road and finish last out of the playoff drivers. Ben Rhodes struggled with the handling on his truck all night, finishing 27th and with a 25-point deficit heading to the cutoff race.
The opening stage went caution-free, but wasn’t short on chaos. Heim passed pole-sitter Connor Zilisch on lap 41 before Caruth passed both to take over the top spot with four laps left in the stage.
Caruth held off a gaggle of trucks to win stage 1. Heim, Eckes, Zilisch and Sanchez rounded out the top five.
Heim inherited the lead after winning the race on pit road and quickly dispatching Timmy Hill — who stayed out on old tires –on the restart. The first caution for the incident came with one lap left in stage two when Zilisch spun out while running in the top five.
Heim secured the stage win with Eckes, Caruth, Riggs and Sanchez receiving top-five stage points.
Daniel Dye brought out the caution on lap 157 when a flat tire led to a spin. Dye collected Kaden Honeycutt and sustained heavy damage, finishing 32nd. Jack Wood spun off the bumper of Ben Rhodes with 19 laps to go, bringing out the final caution of the day.
UNOH 200 Race Results
The final race of the Truck Series playoffs Round of 8 takes place at 8:30 p.m. ET Sept. 27 at Kansas Speedway for the Kubota Tractor 200. FS1 will have live television coverage.
James Krause joined Frontstretch in March 2024 as a contributor. Krause was born and raised in Illinois and graduated from Northern Illinois University. He currently works in La Crosse, Wisconsin as a local sports reporter, including local short track racing. Outside of racing, Krause loves to keep up with football, music, anime and video games.