Layne Riggs clinched the regular season NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series title, then survived a pair of overtimes to win the EJP 175 on Saturday (Aug. 22) at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Riggs clinched the title after the first two stages, earning 17 stage points. The polesitter retook the lead on pit road to start the final stage and led over 100 laps in his sixth win of the season.
“A statement win,” Riggs told Fox Sports 1. “I wouldn’t say dominant. I was off a little bit. I thought I was in trouble when (Connor) Zilisch got by me, Smith got by me. I was just really, really tight. Couldn’t get it where I needed it, but my crew chief Dylan Cappello, engineer Jonathan Coates, they made some excellent adjustments there at the end.”
Riggs’ teammate Chandler Smith finished second while Kaden Honeycutt overcame falling a lap down in the first stage to finish third.
The battle for the final spots in ‘The Chase’ came down to the final laps with Tyler Ankrum ultimately taking the final spot in the 10-truck field with a 16th-place finish. Ankrum ran near the back of the field most of the day due to break issues that frustrated the Truck Series vet.
“It’s very rare you get to come to a place as fast as this and you have no rear brakes and we can’t fix the problem,” Ankrum said. “We’ve had adversities like this throughout the year, and I thought we were done with them. Luckily, (spotter) Eddie D’Hondt gave me awesome advice. He told me to just turn my left rear brake all the way off, run all the rounds to the rear and if it makes it worse run all the way to the front. It was able to just half solve the problems.”
A call to stay out on a late caution before the first of two overtimes moved Ankrum up from 25th to 14th. He held on to enough track position over the final laps to make it in by seven points.
“We were back there in 27th, I was like ‘It’s over,'” Ankrum said. “I didn’t really think that the race would go that way for us.”
Stewart Friesen finished fourth but wound up the first driver out of The Chase. Jake Garcia led at one point but was undone by a penalty for pitting outside of his pit box and damage sustained on a lap 120 wreck en route to a 14th-place run.
Zilisch swept the first two stages and finished fifth. Tristan McKee finished sixth in his second career Truck start. Christopher Bell overcame a spin in the final stage to take seventh ahead of Daniel Hemric, Justin Haley and Parker Eatmon to round out the top 10.
The race wasn’t able to go green for long as the field checked up at the start, seeing Luke Baldwin spin and bring out a caution on lap one. It wasn’t long after the restart that Landen Lewis spun in turn 1 off the bumper of John Hunter Nemechek for the second caution on lap 13.
The rest of the stage went caution free with Zilisch chasing down Riggs to take the lead on lap 36 and win stage one over Riggs, Hemric, Smith and Bell.
The first caution of stage two came on lap 77 for a spin by Spencer Boyd. After the restart, Zilisch again retook the lead, this time from Smith, and won stage two. Smith, Riggs, Bell and Garcia rounded out the top five.
Pit strategy saw Friesen start on the front row to start the final stage alongside teammate Michael Christopher Jr. Riggs was able to jump Friesen to take the lead before a caution for a pileup involving Nemechek, Timmy Hill and Kris Wright.
A tortuous afternoon continued on lap 145 with Bell spinning from inside the top 10 after contact with Smith. As the laps winded down and the battle at the cutline got closer, Gavan Boschele spun and crashed hard into turn 1 with five laps to go to force overtime.Â
Gio Ruggiero started on the inside of the first overtime but spun in turn 1 and collected Connor Mosack and Dawson Sutton. The second overtime proceeded without issue, and Riggs held off Smith for a Front Row Motorsports 1-2 finish.
The field for The Chase will include Riggs, Honeycutt, Smith, Christian Eckes, Ruggiero, Ty Majeski, Grant Enfinger, Ben Rhodes, Hemric and Ankrum.
EJP 175 Race Results
The Truck Series returns for the first race of The Chase on Sept. 17 for the UNOH 250 Presented by Ohio Logistics at Bristol Motor Speedway. The race is set to start at 8 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 1.
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 Fort Wayne, Indiana covering minor league, college and high school sports. Outside of racing, Krause loves to keep up with football, music, anime and video games.
If John “Hunter” Nemechek doesn’t stop spinning out cars he will become John “Hunted” Nemechek for a long time.