The UNOH 250 marked the beginning of the Chase for the championship in the NASCAR Truck Series. And let’s just say the No. 1 seed, Layne Riggs, followed a Denny Hamlin-like trajectory in his opening race. Clean in Stages 1 and 2, sweeping them clean for the stage points, but one mistake in the final stage and his race unravelled.
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Nick Leitz got tangled with the No. 34 truck on lap 226, which forced Riggs to pit late in the race for repairs and that put him 16 laps down. Riggs was frustrated with the overall outcome of the race but he called out Leitz for the crash.
“Mired in the back and you’re two laps down, and you’re just riding around with guys in the back. I guess the 1 [Leitz] just lost talent and wrecked. I don’t really know what happened there. Probably top three hardest hits in my life. I cannot believe the truck was still rolling after that,” Riggs said to Frontstretch.
Riggs could’ve avoided being mired back in traffic and continued his charge for a win. But the pit stop after Stage 2 proved to be a big blunder for the No. 34 team. The crew had a slow stop, changing the right-side tires, which dropped Riggs from leading the race to 6th. And this is where the mistakes kept piling up.
When Riggs got his truck back on the racetrack, he noticed he had issues with his balance. He endured the restart and even gained three spots, but he felt the vibration and he had to pit for an unscheduled stop under green. His pit crew didn’t secure the right rear wheel, and it was loose, which was causing the vibrations. From here on, there was no way back into the race for the driver and he finished 32nd.
Interestingly, none of the Chase drivers had a particularly strong day. With Jake Garcia, a non-Chase driver, winning the race, Riggs still maintains his top spot. Kaden Honeycutt finished 8th and is now three points behind the Chase leader. Chandler Smith didn’t have a good result as well; a 24th-place finish keeps him in 3rd place, 30 points away from the leader.
Ty Majeski, with a top 10 finish, was the only one who made gains in the top 5. He leaped two spots and sits 4th in the standings. Christian Eckes took a big tumble, dropping 4 spots. He sits 8th in the Chase standings. But the biggest let-off was for Layne Riggs as he couldn’t stretch his points lead on a day where none of his rivals were able to close the gap on him.
He didn’t hide where his team dropped the ball in the race. “We lost that one. We lost that one on pit road tonight. I don’t know what happened there. I mean, we had a really slow stop, first of all. And then we didn’t even get the wheel tight, either. I feel like we had the truck to beat. This stings really, really bad,” Riggs said after the race.
Riggs has won six races in the regular season and led a total of 598 laps, but he had to endure his worst finish of 2026. His previous worst finish of P 31 came at the start of the season at Daytona. The No. 34 team had the cushion of the stage points, backed by bad finishes by the driver chasing Riggs. So this should be considered a one-off race.
“It could have been a lot worse of a day,” Riggs said. “We’ve got to clean that up to win a championship.” He has a point; from here on, the No. 34 team will have to execute on all fronts; they cannot rely on the blunders of their rivals to keep them in the race for the championship. The Chase for the Truck Series championship resumes at Kansas Speedway.