Honeycutt Extends Championship Lead With Phoenix Truck Win

The pendulum swung back in Kaden Honeycutt's favor Friday night at Phoenix Raceway. The championship point leader, who saw his point lead cut to 17 points last weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway, padded the lead back to 39 markers with a victory in the Zero Carbon Ethanol 150.

As Honeycutt charged to his fourth victory of the 2026 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series season, as he held off Christian Eckes by 1.556 seconds, Layne Riggs, Honeycutt's rival for the championship could only muster a third-place result.

While it was another major night for Honeycutt's pursuit of a championship, he didn't appear to have race-winning speed early in the race.

"Stage 1, I just struggled," Honeycutt explained. "I don’t know, I just didn’t have good rear grip when we started that first stage, and [my crew chief] Scott [Zipadelli] went to work for me. He was never concerned, and he just kept me locked in the whole time."

Honeycutt credited his crew chief for the incredible adjustments made to his No. 11 truck and his pit crew for blistering pit stops throughout the race for putting him in a position to score the win on Friday night.

"[Zipadelli] Had such great adjustments, pit crew did their job and I can’t thank them enough," Honeycutt exclaimed.

For a brief moment in the closing laps of Friday night's race, it appeared that Eckes and Riggs could reel in Honeycutt for the race lead, as Eckes had cut to less than a second behind Honeycutt with around 10 laps remaining.

But it Honeycutt was too strong, as he pulled away in an anticlimactic finish to a very clean race at the 1-mile oval in Avondale, AZ.

After the race, Honeycutt revealed that he had a new way to celebrate his victories lined up, one designed to give back to the young fans in the crowd after his race wins.

"I’m going to do something new," Honeycutt announced to the crowd. "I’m going to have an actual Safelite-wrapped helmet, and every time I win in NASCAR, I’m going to go up and give it to one of those kids because their parents drove from God knows where to come watch us race, and they deserve something like this. Thank you to everyone in Phoenix for coming to support us.”

On a night that reminded us why many called for Phoenix to be removed as the championship venue, Honeycutt gave the crowd a reason to celebrate with that reveal.

While Friday night's race lacked fireworks on track, no point lead is safe heading into next weekend's event at the 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway. If Honeycutt can emerge from that event with his point lead intact, he'll likely be on his way to hoisting his first NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship. If not, it'll be game on.

But for now, it's all Honeycutt.

While it was a disappointing end result for Riggs, who started from the pole position, the driver was able to keep his head up at the end of the race.

"It just wasn't our night. I'm just happy we executed," Riggs said.

Riggs continued, "I'm not going to hang my head on it. I'm very proud of the effort by the team. I'm glad we executed the race. If we had executed like that at Bristol, and I not make my mistake at Kansas, we would be sitting pretty right now."

Ty Majeski, who swept the Stage wins on Friday night, would fade in the final Stage of the race, and would cross the finish line in the fourth position, and he was followed across the finish line by Jake Garcia, his ThorSport Racing teammate in fifth.

William Sawalich, Daniel Hemric, Gio Ruggiero, Grant Enfinger, and Brent Crews rounded out the top-10 finishers in the race.

Updated Chase Grid (Three Races Remaining)

1. Kaden Honeycutt, 2,323 points
2. Layne Riggs, -39
3. Christian Eckes, -112
4. Chandler Smith, -117
5. Ty Majeski, -135
6. Daniel Hemric, -148
7. Gio Ruggiero, -151
8. Grant Enfinger, -184
9. Ben Rhodes, -188
10. Tyler Ankrum, -201

Zero Carbon Bioethanol 150 Race Results

Fin	Truck	Driver	Laps	Points
1	11	Kaden Honeycutt (C)	150	72
2	91	Christian Eckes (C)	150	48
3	34	Layne Riggs (C)	150	50
4	88	Ty Majeski (C)	150	53
5	98	Jake Garcia	150	39
6	5	William Sawalich (i)	150	0
7	19	Daniel Hemric (C)	150	33
8	17	Gio Ruggiero (C)	150	36
9	9	Grant Enfinger (C)	150	28
10	1	Brent Crews (i)	150	0
11	7	Connor Mosack	150	26
12	44	Andres Perez De Lara	150	25
13	18	Tyler Ankrum (C)	150	24
14	77	Tristan McKee	150	23
15	38	Chandler Smith (C)	150	32
16	45	Landen Lewis	150	31
17	10	Corey LaJoie	150	20
18	13	Cole Butcher #	150	19
19	52	Stewart Friesen	150	18
20	16	Justin Haley	149	17
21	99	Ben Rhodes #	149	20
22	26	Dawson Sutton	148	15
23	12	Brenden Queen #	148	14
24	4	Donovan Strauss	147	13
25	76	Ben Maier	147	12
26	81	Kris Wright	147	11
27	42	Tyler Reif	147	10
28	15	Tanner Gray	147	12
29	14	Mini Tyrrell #	147	8
30	25	Conor Daly	147	7
31	20	Toni Breidinger	147	6
32	2	Monty Tipton	147	5
33	33	Frankie Muniz	147	4
34	62	Leland Honeyman	145	3
35	22	Clayton Green	145	2
36	23	Jackson Lee	142	1

(C) indicates a Chase contender
# indicates a Rookie of the Year contender
(i) indicates a driver ineligible to score points

Add us as a preferred source on Google