The battle for the 2026 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series is really heating up. Championship leader Kaden Honeycutt has been in great form since the Chase began. However, it also means that title rival Layne Riggs is starting to get a little worried.

Riggs finished the Truck race at Phoenix in 3rd place. Ideally, this should have meant that he gained crucial ground on Honeycutt. The bad news was that Honeycutt won that same race. Additionally, fellow championship rival Christian Eckes was 2nd. Now, just 39 points separate Honeycutt and Riggs, but the latter isn’t panicking just yet.

He insisted that with three races left, it was still all to play for. Layne Riggs noted that the next race was at the Talladega Superspeedway. Anyone who knows NASCAR well is aware that Talladega is always a wildcard, especially in the back half of a season. However, Riggs is confident about his chances at Martinsville and Homestead-Miami.

At the end of the day, all that he needs to do is either win races or execute well. On the bright side, his Front Row Motorsports team ran well and gathered valuable stage points. However, he did note something odd: the more comfortable he felt in his #34 Truck, the slower he ran.

The NASCAR driver was still frustrated despite a decent day in the office

Speaking to Bob Pockrass, Layne Riggs talked about maximizing his day at Phoenix. On the surface, a Top 3 finish should be excellent on paper. However, any good feeling was dampened by Kaden Honeycutt’s win.

Riggs told Bob Pockrass, “Yeah I mean that’s just the name of the game. That’s the name of the Chase, right? I was happy that we finished where we were supposed to, tonight. Like I said, if we would have done that at Bristol, I wouldn’t have made a mistake at Kansas and just been happy with a second place. I’m pretty sure we’d still be sitting in the lead right now. I’m happy that we executed, we should’ve been doing that a lot sooner. From my perspective, I feel like I did all I could. I made the right adjustments, I feel like the Truck got better for me. Like I said, just got to be a little bit better tonight.”

Riggs harkened back to the last few races of the Chase and what he could have changed. He highlighted the Truck race at the Bristol Motor Speedway, where he endured a nightmare. Things started off well enough with pole position, and Riggs was the top seed. Unfortunately, the NASCAR driver suffered a slow pit stop and a loose wheel. This was enough to drop him two laps down on the pack. It only got worse when he collided with Nick Leitz, and his day was over.

Kansas went a little better, but the results didn’t really show it. Layne Riggs ran strong for much of the race, but then suffered pit-stop woes for the second race in a row. From there, he channeled all his anger and frustration into his driving, carving his way up the pack. Unfortunately, there was one more curveball, and this one was of his own making. One mistake caused Riggs to scrape the wall and finish 19th.

By then, he was 37 points adrift of Kaden Honeycutt, who was 8th at Bristol and won at Kansas. Fortunately, Riggs had managed to claw back some of the deficit with his win at Charlotte Motor Speedway and then his third place at Kansas. However, Honeycutt’s results at those two races were the inverse, where he was third at Charlotte and won at Kansas.