For the record, I was only one spot off in regard to my pick to win the July 18 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at North Wilkesboro Speedway.
Layne Riggs finished runner-up, 8.479 seconds back of his Front Row Motorsports teammate, Chandler Smith. For the record, I’m still picking Riggs, who bludgeoned the Truck field at IRP last year by leading 160 of 200 laps, to win on Friday (July 24).
Holy smokes, Smith won by how much??
It may not have been as much as a whipping as Joey Logano put on the Cup field on Sunday in regard to laps led, as Smith “only” led 105 of 250 laps, but it was a beatdown of epic proportions. Specifically, Smith’s margin of victory was the largest in the 31-year history of Truck Series racing on short tracks.
It begs the question: is Smith a title threat?
All year, most everybody, including myself, has said the Truck Series title fight is between Riggs and Kaden Honeycutt. I still believe that to be mostly true, even after the Chase reset.
But all year, Smith has been waiting in the wings for his turn to show that he and his No. 38 team, while not as consistently elite as Riggs or Honeycutt, can win on any given weekend.
After winning the season opener at Daytona International Speedway, Smith’s season has been topsy-turvy. He started the year with three straight top-six runs, finished 36th at Rockingham and runner-up at Bristol in consecutive weeks, finished 30th at Charlotte before two straight top fives, then finished 22nd in San Diego and 30th at Lime Rock Park before winning at Wilkesboro.
Yet he’s still third in points, thanks largely to his 103 stage points and the fact that seven of his nine top-10 finishes have been top fives. Smith joins Riggs and Honeycutt as the only drivers with seven or more top-five results this season.
All of that is to say Smith is absolutely a championship contender. Assuming he holds onto third in the regular season standings, he’d be only 35 back of the leader at the start of the Chase. One wreck from Riggs or Honeycutt could have him in in the points lead.
“I personally feel like we’re a championship-caliber team,” Smith said Saturday. “We went through a rut. Charlotte was induced by me. Went to Nashville, was extremely good, went to Michigan, was pretty good, then had two back-to-back races at San Diego and Lime Rock where we finished 30th.”
“Points kind of don’t tell the full story, but truthfully, this 38 team’s been strong. The only race I can even think back on this year that we haven’t been lights out was Dover. The 38 team’s been firing on all eight cylinders, it’s just a matter of if it’s going to be a good day or not.”
Smith and Riggs enter Friday’s (July 24) race at IRP as the only two full-time drivers to win multiple races this season. Front Row is firing on all cylinders right now, and the No. 38 group that was cobbled together two offseasons ago has finally hit its stride.
And Smith, despite his financial connections, is indeed a good racecar driver. He has a wealth of experience in the Truck Series, O’Reilly Series and even a little bit in the Cup Series. The 24-year-old from Talking Rock, Georgia, knows how to race and how to win.
It’s in the Chase where that experience will matter the most and can even occasionally trump the lights-out speed that Riggs and Honeycutt have had for most of the year.
Even if Smith doesn’t win the 2026 Truck Series title, though, he’ll at least have his curb stomping of the field at Wilkesboro to rewatch over the offseason.
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.