The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at North Wilkesboro Speedway is Layne Riggs‘ to lose.
Wait. Crap. I said that last week, and look how that turned out.
All jokes aside, Riggs is the favorite to win this weekend. The short-track ace finished runner-up to Front Row Motorsports teammate Chandler Smith at North Wilkesboro last year after a tangle with Corey Heim, who is driving the No. 5 for TRICON Garage this weekend.
Along with Heim and Smith, Kaden Honeycutt will also be a key challenger of Riggs. Honeycutt is looking for his second win of the season and, with four races left in the regular season, is only 44 points back of Riggs for the points lead and the No. 1 seed in The Chase.
Oh, yeah. The standings. They actually matter again. (Thank you, Mark Martin.)
As good as the racing is on a weekly basis, the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series Chase bubble is somewhat bland. There are only two drivers currently outside the top 12 — William Sawalich and Rajah Caruth — who have a realistic shot at getting in.
The NASCAR Cup Series Chase bubble has, as is standard, been fun to watch all year. Sixteenth through 22nd are separated by only 50 points, which should make the final six-race dash of the regular season a thrilling one.
But the Truck bubble, which was at times very stale in recent years, is arguably just as good. The points battles in the Truck Series in general are entertaining, even inside the top 10: Riggs and Honeycutt have been battling for the top spot all year, and Smith, Christian Eckes and Gio Ruggiero are separated by only 10 points as they race for third. Meanwhile, Ben Rhodes, Daniel Hemric and Grant Enfinger (seventh through ninth) are separated by only 12 points.
But the real fun begins at the bubble, where 10th-place Tyler Ankrum is currently the last driver in by only 17 points over Stewart Friesen. Friesen is tied with Jake Garcia, while Brenden Queen has dragged RAM to within 21 points of a potential playoff berth. Andres Perez, who had one of his best races of the season at Lime Rock Park this month, is 14th and only 31 points out of the top 10. Justin Haley (15th, -34) and Tanner Gray (16th, -41) are also still in the mix, with Haley also trying to chase a title with RAM and Gray looking to make the postseason for the first time in his seventh season.
There’s also the matter of the Truck schedule. The final four races of the regular season are all short tracks, as long as you include New Hampshire Motor Speedway in that category.
Still, North Wilkesboro, Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park and Richmond Raceway are the next three races on the schedule. If you thought Truck racing was already aggressive, wait until drivers are fighting for a Chase berth. Then throw them into bullrings for three straight races and another tricky track in New Hamsphire in the regular season finale and see if any of them get out alive.
Enfinger’s win at Lime Rock showed how volatile the Truck Chase bubble is. He went from 11th, five points out, to ninth and 42 points above the cut line with just one win. Ankrum, Friesen and Garcia are all capable of winning if the cookie crumbles the right way, and Perez, Queen, Haley and Gray could all run top five or top 10 at any of the next four races if a little chaos occurs.
Even if the bubble battle doesn’t turn out to be exciting, there’s still battles for Chase seeding inside the top 10 and the battle for the points lead between Riggs and Honeycutt, which I’ve found as fun to keep up with as the fight between Tyler Reddick, Denny Hamlin and now Ryan Blaney at the top of the Cup standings.
So if you weren’t already, be thinking about the points as you watch the Truck race at North Wilkesboro. Things aren’t guaranteed to get weird, but they are guaranteed to be interesting at the very least.
A member of the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA), Samuel also covers NASCAR for Yardbarker, Field Level Media, and Heavy Sports. He will attend the University of Arkansas in the fall of 2025.