Honeycutt Wins Heavily-Delayed Truck Race at Kansas; Takes Point Lead

Kaden Honeycutt was masterful in the closing laps of Saturday's weather-delayed NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Race to Stop Suicide 200 at Kansas Speedway. In the end, the TRICON Garage driver closed out a dominant effort with his third victory of the season.

The trophy from Saturday night's race will be able to take its place in Honeycutt's trophy case alongside his wins earlier this season at Watkins Glen International and Richmond Raceway.

“Great job by this Safelite crew. This No. 11 for TRICON Garage, Scott Zipadelli (crew chief), the freaking goat," Honeycutt exclaimed after the race. "My pit crew man, they are just the best. There’s nothing else I can say about that."

What was already a major point-day for Honeycutt was super-charged by a pair of Stage wins (20 championship points), and by his main rival for the championship, Layne Riggs, making a mistake while chasing him for the win in the closing laps.

Honeycutt, who led the race four times for a race-high 111 laps, took the lead for good with a pass of Riggs with 12 laps remaining. Honeycutt, who was on four fresh tires at the end of the race, was able to make quick work of Riggs, who took two tires on the final stop. Honeycutt was surprised that he was able to dispose of Riggs so quickly.

"I knew the two tires were definitely going to be hard to gain on the 34 (Layne Riggs), he had really good speed," Honeycutt admitted. "We just executed, just executed all night. We had really good speed all night."

As Honeycutt cruised to the win by 1.358 seconds over Christian Eckes, Riggs limped across the line with a battered No. 34 Ford F-150 and was credited with a 19th-place result.

It was an impressive win, made even more impressive by the fact that Honeycutt was battling a cold, evident by his stuffy sinuses in his post-race interview.

Brent Crews, a full-time NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series competitor for Joe Gibbs Racing, finished the night with a third-place result driving the No. 5 TRICON Garage Toyota.

Crews was followed across the line by a trio of Chase contenders, including Daniel Hemric in fourth, Ben Rhodes in fifth, and Chandler Smith in sixth.

Nick Leitz, Tanner Gray, Jake Garcia, and Corey LaJoie rounded out the top-10 finishers in the Race to Stop Suicide 200 at Kansas Speedway.

After collecting the trophy on Saturday night, Honeycutt, who entered the day three points behind Riggs for the championship lead, will now carry a 37-point advantage over Riggs with just five races remaining in the championship fight.

Riggs had one of the fastest trucks in the race, but an alternator issue, an early-race run-in with Honeycutt for the lead that caused him to scrape the wall, and a bad pit stop mired him deep in the field going into a nearly five-hour red flag for rain. When the race resumed, Riggs knifed his way from 19th to the runner-up spot in the closing laps.

However, the good finish wasn't meant to be, as Riggs made a mistake of his own and got into the outside wall with two laps remaining in the race.

Grant Enfinger, another Chase contender, actually held the lead of the race heading into the incredibly long red flag with 69 laps to go. For a while, as rain continued to fall, it looked like Enfinger would win the race.

However, after the race went back to green, Enfinger suffered a flat tire, and after stopping on track on Lap 123 to get the caution flag to come out, Enfinger was assessed a two-lap penalty by NASCAR for intentionally bringing out the caution.

Enfinger would finish 31st, five laps down. As a result, he dropped three spots in the championship standings to ninth, and now sits 118 points behind Honeycutt.

Chase Grid After Kansas (Five Races Remaining)

1. Kaden Honeycutt, 2,197 points
2. Layne Riggs, -37
3. Chandler Smith, -71
4. Gio Ruggiero, -72
5. Christian Eckes, -82
6. Daniel Hemric, -87
7. Ty Majeski, -88
8. Ben Rhodes, -98
9. Grant Enfinger, -118
10. Tyler Ankrum, -127

Race to Stop Suicide 200 Race Results

1. 11 - Kaden Honeycutt (C)
2. 91 - Christian Eckes (C)
3. 5 - Brent Crews (i)
4. 19 - Daniel Hemric (C)
5. 99 - Ben Rhodes (C)
6. 38 - Chandler Smith (C)
7. 1 - Nick Leitz
8. 15 - Tanner Gray
9. 98 - Jake Garcia
10. 10 - Corey LaJoie
11. 16 - Justin Haley
12. 13 - Cole Butcher #
13. 17 - Gio Ruggiero (C)
14. 12 - Brenden Queen #
15. 20 - Daniel Dye
16. 25 - Conor Daly
17. 7 - Brennan Poole (i)
18. 14 - Mini Tyrrell #
19. 34 - Layne Riggs (C)
20. 76 - Spencer Boyd
21. 52 - Stewart Friesen
22. 42 - Parker Eatmon
23. 22 - Clayton Green
24. 44 -Andres Perez De Lara
25. 18 - Tyler Ankrum (C)
26. 26 - Toni Breidinger
27. 2 - Stephen Mallozzi
28. 77 - Nick Sanchez
29. 88 - Ty Majeski (C)
30. 62 - Leland Honeyman
31. 9 - Grant Enfinger (C)
32. 4 - Connor Hall
33. 33 - Josh Reaume
34. 45 - Landon Lewis
35. 93 - Caleb Costner
36. 81 - Kris Wright

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

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