Honeycutt score second truck win at Richmond

This week has been a triumphant one for TRICON Garage driver Kaden Honeycutt, who dominated the weather-delayed Black’s Tire 250 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race at Richmond Raceway on Saturday afternoon. This impressive victory comes just days after the 23-year-old Texan announced that he and his wife Jessica are expecting their first child.

Honeycutt led 225 of the 250 laps at the 0.75-mile track, marking the most laps he has ever led in a single race. This surpasses his previous best of 59 laps led at Darlington earlier this year, and it’s more than he’s led in all of his 75 previous series races combined. For the first time in his career, he also swept both stage wins.

Ultimately, Honeycutt’s No. 11 TRICON Garage Toyota finished 1.313 seconds ahead of his teammate, reigning series champion Corey Heim, in the team’s No. 5 Toyota Tundra. After a series of late-race pit stops, Honeycutt regained the lead with 29 laps to go and maintained it until the end.

His performance broke a long-standing Richmond race trend where the driver leading the most laps typically doesn’t win. Honeycutt was consistently strong, at one point holding the lead for a 195-lap stretch.

This victory is his second career win and second of the season, reducing the championship lead of Saturday’s 15th place finisher, Front Row Motorsports driver Layne Riggs, to 61 points as the regular season finale approaches next week at New Hampshire.

The win is also significant for Honeycutt’s veteran crew chief, Scott Zippadelli, who now has 38 career series victories, second only to Eric Phillips’ 44 wins.

“Man, we never give up,” Honeycutt said. “We’ve had a tough couple of weeks and were wondering what was going on. We’re not a seventh-place, tenth-place team, and it’s all thanks to [crew chief] Scott Zippadelli and everyone on this 11-team.

“We just keep pushing. We don’t give up, and I just can’t thank everyone enough. What a dominant day. I’ve never done anything like this before, so it’s great for my confidence, and hopefully, we can do the same at Loudon next week. Just really cool.”

McAnally-Hilgemann’s Christian Eckes finished third in the No. 91 Chevrolet, with first-time series pole-winner, New Zealander Shane van Gisbergen, finishing fourth in the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet. He will also compete in the NASCAR Cup Series race Saturday night. Grant Enfinger, who led 22 laps in the No. 9 CR7 Motorsports Chevrolet, completed the top five.

The Richmond race significantly impacted the championship standings.

Tyler Ankrum, who entered the race ranked 11th, one spot outside the Chase 10-driver championship-eligible field, received a penalty for having too many men over the pit wall on his No. 18 McAnally-Hilgemann team’s first pit stop. After earning stage points with an eighth-place finish in the first stage, he began the next stage as the last truck on the lead lap.

Ankrum overcame the setback just 20 laps into the run, quickly passing his main rival Stewart Friesen (who was 10th in points) before finishing 11th in Stage 2 and ultimately in the race.

Friesen caused the third and final caution by crashing with 33 laps remaining, impacting the standings. Ankrum’s consistent performance and Friesen’s misfortune—he finished last in the 37-car field—moved Ankrum into the crucial 10th position in the standings.

He is now 20 points ahead of Friesen and 21 points ahead of Saturday’s sixth-place finisher, ThorSport Racing’s Jake Garcia, as the series heads into the regular season finale at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

The three drivers vying for the final Chase transfer position have only four previous starts among them at New Hampshire. Friesen has competed twice there, with his best finish being fifth in 2017. He was injured and did not race last fall. Ankrum and Garcia raced there once, finishing 11th and 16th, respectively, in their only series starts at the track.

ThorSport’s Ty Majeski also endured a challenging afternoon, officially securing a spot in the Chase despite falling two laps behind due to tire issues early on. He finished 19th, a lap down, but his perseverance was enough to secure his Chase position.

Garcia and Front Row Motorsports’ Chandler Smith finished sixth and seventh, with Spire Motorsports’ 16-year-old Tristan McKee impressively finishing eighth in his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series debut. TRICON’s Gio Ruggiero and McAnally-Hilgemann’s Daniel Hemric completed the top ten. Virginian-native Elliott Sadler, in the free agent Kaulig Racing Ram, finished 32nd.

The regular season finale is set for next Saturday with the Team EJP 175 (1:30 p.m. ET, FS1, NASCAR Racing Network, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The 2025 series champion Heim won last year’s race from pole position.