Kaden Honeycutt Chasing 1st Win, Playoff Berth & More in 1st Full-Time Opportunity With Niece

After running three part-time seasons in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, Kaden Honeycutt landed a full-time gig with Niece Motorsports for 2025 and is on the cusp of his first win.

The 2024 CARS Tour Pro Late Model champion from Texas came close to tasting victory last season in a successful part-time schedule with Niece, and this year he has his eyes set on a win, a playoff berth and the biggest prize of them all: a championship.

Honeycutt currently sits 11th in points — five points below the cut — with three top 10s through six races. Frontstretch had the opportunity to interview Honeycutt prior to the fourth race of the season at Homestead-Miami Speedway to discuss his expectations for 2025, as well as fellow CARS Tour graduate Josh Berry‘s first NASCAR Cup Series win, the new tracks added to the extended 2025 Truck schedule, growing up near Texas Motor Speedway and more.

Stephen Stumpf, Frontstretch: This is your first full-time season with Niece [after running] part time the last couple of years. Just tell me how exciting this experience is and what the first couple of weeks have been like in the 2025 season.

Kaden Honeycutt: Yeah, it’s definitely been up and down. Definitely down to start, and then the last couple of weeks have been up. We’ve made up a ton of ground from Daytona. Guys have been working extremely hard and getting together new trucks and stuff to get better with. …

It’s been good, and it’s also been bad. Definitely learned a lot last week [at Atlanta]. My decision making needs to be definitely better on [re]starts, not lose spots. Here at Homestead, I think we’ll have a really good truck. We were good last year, so I’m really looking forward to today and to continue our success.

Honeycutt went on to finish 10th at Homestead later that evening.

Stumpf: Last year, the 1.5-mile tracks — especially Charlotte and Kansas — those were among your best places. Do you guys feel you’re still on the same page there?

Honeycutt: Yeah, I think so. Really haven’t tried to venture away from anything we’ve done since Carson [Hocevar‘s] honestly raced here in 2023. We’ve just tried to make everything better and more comfortable for me to drive, and that’s really, honestly, what we’ve been working on this whole time.

I think we’ve had really good speed, just need to take these next couple of weeks — like we go to Martinsville and Bristol, short track stuff. So that’s definitely a side that we’ve been trying to make better for sure. But I think we’ll have a good day here at Homestead and keep racking points up. … If we can start front running in the top five every week, a win will come. So that’s kind of the mindset we got right now.

The following race was Martinsville, where Honeycutt qualified third, ran top three all night and led a career-high 20 laps until he and Ty Majeski spun while racing for the lead with 14 laps to go. He then backed up that speed with an eighth-place finish in the most recent Truck race at Bristol on Friday (April 11).

Stumpf: Obviously, the expectation is to win, but is there anything else you’re looking for this year to say that would be a good season overall?

Honeycutt: Obviously, make the playoffs for sure. That’s the number one goal, and if we make it to Phoenix, that’d be awesome. That’s really honestly our goal. If we can make it to Phoenix in our first year, I think we have a really good chance of going after, the second year, going after a championship.

I really think this year, we can do it too. [It’s] just a matter of me putting the races together as a team and running a whole season together for the first time as a team with me driving. If we can quickly build the process — it’s hard to do that, but if we can somehow do that early on this year, I think we can end up for a title fight at the end. Just a matter of putting race to race together.

Stumpf: I did want to talk about Josh Berry’s win at [Las Vegas]. On Twitter/X, you posted, ‘Everyone liked that,’ and he’s the first CARS Tour graduate to win a Cup race. And a [CARS] graduate yourself, just how exciting is it to see another one of the alumni go in and have all this success?

Honeycutt: Yeah, I think everyone definitely did like that, just because everyone knows his situation and how he did it. Especially when you have Dale Earnhardt Jr. having his back for as long as he did, and to go and see him do that, it’s really inspiring; it definitely motivates me to do the same.

Really happy for him. I’ve raced against him multiple times. … Just really cool to see that, and hopefully that can be me one day — [I’m] determined to get there.

Stumpf: The CARS Tour has already become a big ladder up to NASCAR now. Do you feel like it’s going to become even more of a ladder and a steppingstone as you, Josh, Layne [Riggs] and others continue to have success?

Honeycutt: I would hope so. They definitely got to change some stuff up to get some more cars [entered]. Everyone knows how this sport works, unfortunately, and I just hope it doesn’t trickle down to the Tour.

But yeah, it’s really the best short track racing right now, [but] running super late model stuff is good too. I think CARS Tour right now has the most exposure wise on Flo [Racing] with Kevin [Harvick], Earnhardt, Jeff [Burton] and Justin Marks all in that deal. It’s going to continue to grow. It’s going to get better, and they’re doing a lot of good things over there.

Stumpf: You’re from just outside Fort Worth, Texas. Was having Texas Motor Speedway [nearby] a big part of getting hooked into racing at a young age?

Honeycutt: Yeah, I’ve sat outside on the [Lone Star] condo one of my buddies owned. I’ve sat and watched that racing. I’ve been there since 2015, I think, watching from up there. Watching the stands as a kid, I got a picture of me with Jeff Gordon going out around there in 2009.

So yeah, TMS has been a big, big part of my life. I tried to race there a couple of years ago, and I blew a right front tire in practice, so I never even got to race. Going there will be really cool. Like I said, we’re trying to build every weekend we possibly can.

Texas is one of those really big track position and staying out of trouble [races]. It seems like Texas is getting a lot riskier and slicker. Just going to go there and try to learn and practice and try to make most of the day that we can.

For our company at Niece Motorsports is based out of Texas. Well, (owner) Al [Niece] is, so we’re having to go there with a [paint] scheme we’ll announce later on. Will be really cool if we can have some success there.

Stumpf: Other new places on the schedule this year include Rockingham and Lime Rock, which are places the Truck Series either hasn’t raced before or hasn’t raced in at least a decade plus. Are you guys excited to hit those tracks for the first time?

Honeycutt: Definitely looking forward to Rockingham, obviously because we tested there in January, and I think it’s going to be really crazy.

I mean, there was speeds going 175 mph down the frontstretch, so really interesting how that race is going to play out. Hopefully, it winds out so we can actually race really close together and not be a dirty-air pack sitting on the bottom. So yeah, it’ll be an interesting race for sure.

Going to Lime Rock is all right-hand turns, so that’ll really be an attrition race, being 100 laps. Also going to the [Charlotte] ROVAL too. It’s just going to be Truck guys, and I think most of this garage hasn’t run the ROVAL, so that’d be interesting going in the playoffs there. Definitely some new tracks, but we’re looking forward to it.

Stumpf: The series is up to 25 races now this year compared to 23 in years past. Do you feel like 25 is the right amount? Do you feel it should be more or less, or do you not have an opinion?

Honeycutt: It doesn’t matter too much to me. I know as far as companies wise — not just us in Niece Motorsports — a lot of teams are wanting not such a huge gap in between weeks just from how things work around.

Having those two [extra] races was good for us. Honestly, I’d rather run longer races than more races. I wish we got to do more laps at some of these tracks, but yeah, as far as companies wise, it’s good for us to do 25.