Lane Riggs wins the Navy 250 at Naval Base Coronado in San Diego – Lane Riggs Racing Photo
Ford Racing Notes and Quotes – NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series
FORD F-150 AND LAYNE RIGGS CONTINUE HOT STREAK – WIN INAUGURAL NAVY 250 ON NAVAL BASE CORONADO
* Layne Riggs won today’s Navy 250 on Naval Base Coronado, marking
his ninth career victory.
* This is Ford Racing’s fifth win of the season and fourth for
Riggs, who won at St. Petersburg, Charlotte and Nashville. Chandler
Smith won the season-opener in Daytona.
* It’s also the third win in the last four races for Riggs, whose
four wins this year is a career best.
* In addition, Riggs moved into second-place on Ford’s all-time NCTS
wins list with nine and trails only the late Greg Biffle, who had 16
career series victories.
* Ford Racing has now won 134 all-time NCTS races while this is the
20th for Front Row Motorsports.
LAYNE RIGGS, No. 34 Mattermost Ford F-150 – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW:
“Layne van Riggsbergen came to play today, man. I got my second street
course win. We’re undefeated in street courses. Much respect, Shane. I
wish I could be as good as you one day, but I’m gonna take all my
glory here in the Truck Series. Thank you to everybody. I don’t even
know what happened at the end. Sparks flying. People wrecking. Staying
the throttle. I was running out of fuel the entire last lap. It was like
St. Pete all over again. A great job with Reif there. I faked left to
scare him and he missed the corner. I wasn’t really gonna dive it in
there and it worked for me. I hate that Chandler got taken out there and
the 11. They definitely had it won. They beat us on strategy. We just
didn’t have the tires and when we stayed out because we could make it
to the end on fuel the tires prevailed. What a crazy race today with the
strategy and everything else. It’s an amazing, historic win. We’ve
got Mattermost on the truck this weekend. Thank you to everybody at Ford
Racing. Joey Hand, you’re the man. We’re 2-for-2 on street courses.
This is awesome. What a historic event, so thank you to everybody that
is involved. Hopefully, we put on a great race for all the fans that
have never seen NASTRUCKS before.” HOW SPECIAL IS THIS GROUP OF GUYS
ON YOUR TEAM? “It’s great. We’ve worked so hard. We were close
last year and this year we’re just really hitting our stride. I mean,
until the last lap when the 38 and the 11 wrecked I was gonna finish
fourth or fifth and it just fell in our lap, which I feel like things
rarely fall in our lap in a good way. It’s usually on a bad note, so
we’re using our luck up now. We’ve got to keep it paced through the
season to make sure we have just enough for those last few races.”
Ford Finishing Results:
1st – Layne Riggs
5th – Ty Majeski
8th – Ben Rhodes
15th – Cole Butcher
17th – Austin Varco
20th – Frankie Muniz
22nd – Chandler Smith
27th – Jackson Lee
32nd – Jake Garcia
CHANDLER SMITH, No. 38 Hard Rock Casino Tejon/Hard Rock Cafe Ford F-150
– WHAT HAPPENED IN OVERTIME? “The 11 overshot the corner. I drove it
off in there really deep and when I lifted, I noticed that he kind of
surged, so I was like, ‘He’s not going to make the corner,’ so I
backed it up to try to get a good shape to get a good exit and cross him
back. When I did it was too far left and when he ricocheted it off the
wall, there I was. It wasn’t in the Lord’s Will for today,
truthfully. That’s the part that to a point is difficult to accept. It
stings right now knowing how awesome of a Hard Rock Ford F-150 we had
today. That thing was a rocket ship. It was so good. Lights out,
especially after the first quarter of the race we were ridiculously
good. Knowing how cool this event is and we’re probably not ever gonna
come back to it – all of those things kind of sting and that’s when
it’s gonna sting a little more.” HOW MUCH CAN YOU SAY THIS COULD
HAVE BEEN DIFFERENTLY AS OPPOSED TO THIS IS JUST A HIGH SPEED STREET
COURSE INCIDENT? “The only thing I truthfully could have done is
backed it up even more to make sure I was more further right, but then
you risk if he does make it, well then I’m not gonna have a big enough
run to cross him back over. At the end of the day, I do truly believe it
wasn’t in God’s Will for me to win the race today and something was
gonna happen, whether Kaden junks us or something else happens
progressively throughout the entire lap there.” DO YOU JUST ACCEPT
THIS IS A STREET COURSE AND THESE ARE THE THINGS THAT HAPPEN? “No, not
really. We’re in the top three series of NASCAR, so no, but you needed
to damper your expectations for some situations I suppose, I guess, but
I don’t know.” DO YOU PUT THIS UNDER THE RACING DEAL CATEGORY OR
SHOULD WE TALK TO KADEN ABOUT IT? “Kaden is a good race car driver. I
think he really is. I don’t think he meant to do that intentionally.
Emotions get high. There’s a win on the line. I get all that, but at
what point do you draw the line in the sand when you know you’re gonna
wreck yourself doing it, like with the new points format and all that,
that stuff ain’t worth it and I just think he’s a smarter race car
driver than that, truthfully.”
TY MAJESKI, No. 88 SPAM/Menards Ford F-150 – “I’m just glad to get
on a plane and go home, I guess. This track is unique. It was
challenging for us today. I really thought the race was pretty clean for
most of it and then at the end sometimes these road courses get like
that. Guys up front. Guys on different strategies. Guys up front who
aren’t normally up front with different fuel and tires. There was a
lot of parity in the race today and we didn’t have the best truck. I
didn’t really do the best job either because I made some mistakes. I
was just kind of on a knife edge all day long, but a solid run for our
Menards Ford F-150 with Spam on the hood. We’ll take a top five and
head to Lime Rock.”
BEN RHODES, No. 99 Campers Inn Ford F-150 – “This is pretty much the
definition of survival. I don’t know how it could get any closer.
We’ve got rubs on all four tires it seems like. I think the housing is
bent. I think something on the left-front is bent and we still had a
chance to potentially get a top five. It’s a survival day. It’s
built Ford tough. Our Campers Inn RV had good pace, but just
circumstances having to start in the back, the damage early on and going
to the back again, I think we passed more people than anybody today,
which shows why we picked up so much damage. I hate that. We need to
start up front and just run up front and our days would be a lot
easier.” WHAT ABOUT THIS EVENT OVERALL? “This place has been
unbelievable. The turnout has been great. Everybody has been super kind
and very welcoming for us to be here. It’s been a thriller. I hope we
do some more one-off events like this in the future.”
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