Truckin’ Thursdays: What A Horrid Year to Be The NASCAR Chase’s No. 1 Seed

Being the No. 1 seed in the 2026 NASCAR Chase is, apparently, a kiss of death.

None of the No. 1 seeds in NASCAR’s top three series – Denny Hamlin, Sheldon Creed and Layne Riggs – are still atop the standings. After just two Chase races, Riggs is now 37 points back of Kaden Honeycutt with only five races remaining in the season.

Riggs’ Chase-opening race at Bristol Motor Speedway was plagued by mistakes not of his own doing. He swept the stages but finished 32nd after a loose wheel and an accident with Nick Leitz.

More issues on pit road had Riggs in line to finish 19th at the Sept. 26 race at Kansas Speedway had it ended early due to rain. Another mistake by his crew left him buried in the running order, though he came back when the race resumed and looked to be in a position to recover nicely.

“Pretty concerned,” Riggs said regarding the pit road error. “Three out of the last four races, we’ve had an issue on pit road, something catastrophic on pit road. Just, we definitely need to get it together.”

That was until Riggs got greedy while racing Honeycutt with two laps to go. Riggs hit the wall, which not only allowed Honeycutt to go on and win the race, but relegated Riggs to a 19th-place finish anyway.

Needless to say, it wasn’t a good day for the No. 34 team. The championship favorite will now have to claw his way back to Honeycutt, and the No. 11 team certainly won’t give up the title easily.

I’m disappointed in myself,” Riggs said after Kansas. “I let my crew down for sure. I felt like I should have been a lot smarter and thinking bigger picture knowing I could’ve come out of here second and had a better shot, but I just made it a whole lot harder on myself.

“Like I said, this is going to be something I beat myself up on all week long before we got to Charlotte [Motor Speedway]. I think we have two weeks; I’d rather have one and go redeem myself.”

Redemption at Charlotte Motor Speedway is certainly a possibility for Riggs, who won at the 1.5-mile track in May’s shortened Sunday race. The bad news? Honeycutt finished second in that race and is sure to be a threat again on the heels of his third victory of the season.

That means that even if Riggs does win at CMS on Oct. 9, there’s a chance that even a max points day might not be enough for him to wrangle back the points lead from his main title challenger.

What is in Riggs’ favor, however, is his experience. He’s still won twice the races that Honeycutt has this year and can by no means be counted out for the win if he’s at the front of the field during the final five races.

Mistakes like he made in the closing laps at Kansas can’t happen again. Riggs admitted that he pushed too hard, likely a product of seeing his main championship rival en route to a win. You can’t win the Chase in race No. 2, and you might not be able to completely lose it, but you can certainly take steps towards either

Riggs and Honeycutt went in their respective directions and now face a crucial race at Charlotte. More bad luck or another crucial mistake on Riggs’ part could allow Honeycutt to pull away even more and put Riggs in another pressure-packed situation come Phoenix Raceway on Oct. 16.