Layne Riggs, driver of the #34 BKB Bare Knuckle Boxing Ford, celebrates in victory lane after winning the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Ecosave 200 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. (Photo by David Jensen/Getty Images)
Ford Racing Notes & Quotes – NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series – Charlotte Motor Speedway
LAYNE RIGGS COMPLETES CHARLOTTE SWEEP WITH ECOSAVE 200 VICTORY
* Layne Riggs won his seventh race of the season and 12th of his
career with tonight’s victory.
* The win completes a Charlotte season sweep after he took the
checkered flag in May as well.
* Ford has 10 wins this season and has won eight of the last 12 events
overall.
* This marks the fourth time that Ford has won 10 or more races in a
NCTS season.
* Ford’s other NCTS wins this year have been by Chandler Smith (2)
and Jake Garcia (1).
* Riggs is now only four wins away from tying Greg Biffle (16) as
Ford’s all-time wins leader in the series.
* Overall, Ford has won 139 series races.
Ford Finishing Results:
1st – Layne Riggs
5th – Chandler Smith
11th – Ty Majeski
18th – Cole Butcher
21st – Ben Rhodes
22nd – Luke Baldwin
27th – Josh Reaume
29th – Jake Garcia
36th – Clayton Green
LAYNE RIGGS, No. 34 BKB Bare Knuckle Boxing Ford F-150 – VICTORY LANE
INTERVIEW – “It was a great race tonight. Front Row Motorsports gave
me a great truck. We’ve been working a lot at the Ford Racing
simulator to get better for this race. We kind of fine tuned our setup
that we had here in the Spring, and brought the same truck back. I feel
like the bumps and characteristics of this track make it really, really
difficult to hit it just right. Obviously, we still got to do some
better work on pit road today, we lost spots every single time. But the
truck was good enough, and I was confident enough behind the wheel that
I was able to drive it back up to the front.”
On cutting the championship lead to 17 points – “Yeah, I mean, I could
have today at Phoenix, or, you know, or we could finish fifth at
Phoenix, and who knows what’s going to happen at Talladega? It’s
tightened back up right here. It’s going to be a great battle to the
end.”
CHANDLER SMITH, No. 38 Mystik Lubricants Ford F-150 – WHAT A COMEBACK.
“Yeah and that doesn’t even do it justice. Then we came under that
green flag cycle and got stuck a lap down and had to start at the tail
end again. Our No. 38 Mystiki Lubricants Ford F-150 was really good
tonight. Obviously, we ran top three the whole race until we had that
problem. Man, I don’t even know what to call it back there. It’s
something. I didn’t like it. I joked to the guys, ‘Please, don’t
put me in this spot again. I hate it back here. I’m scared.’ I was
joking because we haven’t had nothing go for us and then we dodged
that wreck and I came on the radio and was like, ‘I want to praise the
Lord for us dodging that wreck’ because that would have been the
topping on the cake for tonight. To rebound and finish top five, I’m
humbled.”
YOU ARE 77 POINTS BACK OF THE LEAD. “That’s good. Sweet. It sounds
good to me. Let’s go to Phoenix.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU WILL HAVE FOR THEM IN PHOENIX? “We had a
race-winning truck today, so if we keep bringing trucks like this, we
just have to execute.”
WINNER’S PRESS CONFERENCE
LAYNE RIGGS, No. 34 BKB Bare Knuckle Boxing Ford F-150 – WHAT WAS IT
THAT MADE YOU SO HAPPY AFTER THE RACE? “Just the situation that
we’re in right now, we really needed this tonight, but I felt like at
the same time I just went out and had fun tonight. I talked to many of
you guys earlier and I said what I did in midsummer and spring was just
go out and have a good time and enjoy racing and that’s what I did
tonight. Obviously, we still had issues on pit road and had to fight
back. We kept putting ourselves behind the eight ball, but thankfully
the truck was fast enough that I was able to keep driving back to the
front.”
IS YOUR SHOULDER GOOD AFTER THE POUNDING? “It’s great.”
OVER THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS HOW IMPORTANT WAS IT TO REBOUND THIS WAY?
“I think that every day is a new day. Every race is a new race. I’ve
never really been one to carry past feelings into the next race.
Obviously, it was kind of a beat down after Kansas. I felt like I let my
team down, but at the same time I’m like, I can’t change that.
I’ve just got to focus forward. I know I can go win at Charlotte. I
know I can go win the rest of the races this year and, obviously, we had
a fast enough truck tonight to be able to do that. It’s just eye on
the prize. I just had fun tonight. I just went out there and enjoyed
what I did. I had some great battles with Kaden there at the end. The 91
gave me a really good shove out there as well to help me compete. It was
really enjoyable racing on the racetrack and that was what made it fun
for me and really kept me in the zone.”
WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE TO BE IN THIS POSITION WITH KADEN? IT SEEMS LIKE
ANYTHING SHORT OF PERFECTION COULD COST ONE OF YOU THIS CHAMPIONSHIP.
“Yeah, I fully agree with that. We’ve really struggled – wrecked
at Kansas, had a loose wheel at Bristol, and I felt like we’ve had the
fastest truck the last four or five races, or one of the fastest trucks
– either first or second-fastest pretty much everywhere we go. The 15
bonus points for winning is gonna make that difference at the end of the
day and not letting the other person win. That was kind of what I was
thinking going into Kansas, but when you don’t think about that, you
put that in the background, and you just go and focus on today and say,
‘I just want the trophy. I’m just gonna do it the right way. I’m
gonna do it smart. If I don’t have the truck or I don’t have the
capability to do it, I don’t need to try to make something happen
that’s not possible.’ That’s just what I focused on tonight.”
GIVEN THE FACT THAT IT’S A 40-POINT SWING IN THE STANDINGS IF YOU PASS
HIM OR DON’T PASS HIM. HOW DID YOU GET YOUR MIND TO THE POINT WHERE
YOU DID NOT FEEL THE PRESSURE? “I wasn’t thinking about that. I
think, for me, that doesn’t really matter. I’m gonna go try to win
every race, no matter what, the same way and I think, if anything,
points at Kansas – usually people that points race race safer, but, if
anything, when I think about points it makes me want to race harder and
that’s not something I need to do. I need to race like I do early in
the season – go for every win – but if I don’t have the truck to
win, then I’m just gonna have to do what I have to do and finish in
that position. Like I said, I think all of that culmination, the wake-up
call at Kansas, knowing that we just have to come and win races, run
well, but at the same time if we can’t, we can’t. It wasn’t meant
to be and I feel like that way I was able to relax tonight and go out
there and be myself.”
HOW MANY CHANGES DID YOU HAVE TO MAKE WITH THIS TRUCK SINCE IT WAS THE
SAME ONE FROM EARLIER IN THE YEAR? “The best part is I don’t know.
My crew chief and engineer tell me to stick to my job and drive and get
out of their noses on what the setup is because I as an engineer like to
overindulge in trying to have a hand in setups, so I told them to figure
it out, make what changes you think you need to make and they said,
‘We’re pretty close.’ That’s all I know. That’s the best
part.”
YOU WEREN’T HAPPY WITH KADEN MIRROR DRIVING YOU. WAS THAT JUST
FRUSTRATION BEING BEHIND HIM OR DID YOU THINK IF HE MIRROR DROVE THAT HE
WOULD EVENTUALLY MAKE A MISTAKE? “I kind of felt that way and at the
end of the day that’s kind of what happened. We’ve raced
door-to-door all year long. Obviously, when you race against each other
a lot, you’re gonna run into each other a lot and you’re not gonna
be happy sometimes. I know I accidentally had him jacked up on the
frontstretch that one time. That was unintentional. I totally forgot
about that until just now, but I feel like last weekend he definitely
got up into my lane and I wasn’t smart enough to lift and fenced it
that way. I learned from those mistakes and applied them tonight.”
YOU ARE ONLY THE SECOND DRIVER TO WIN CONSECUTIVE TRUCK RACES HERE,
ALONG WITH KYLE BUSCH. DOES IT FEEL FITTING FOR THAT TO HAPPEN WITH THE
SPORT CELEBRATING HIS LIFE TONIGHT? “It sounds great. Like I said,
he’s my hero. He’s the guy, at least in the Truck Series, everybody
wanted to be like. That’s the pinnacle. That’s our goal and our
mindset. We want to be where he’s at, which is on top. I hate we’re
not racing with him tonight. I know that if he was here, he would have
been running this truck race tonight and probably would have finished
second to him. I definitely want to be out there right now for his
celebration of life. I was gonna stay regardless, but I hope with the
performance we put on tonight and what I did, I hope that he’d be
proud of me.”
THERE WERE SOME 49ER CHANTS COMING FROM THE CROWD. WHAT DID YOU THINK?
“That was awesome. We had a whole section out here. Six miles away.
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte. My alma mater. It was
great to have the support from them tonight. I know that they did a
discount ticket special. They have a shuttle bus going from the campus
to here tonight to carry students back and forth before and after the
race. Just the connection with Charlotte Motor Speedway, the Truck
Series, NASCAR and myself has been a great partnership and a lot of
supporters from the school as well. I love winning here in my
backyard.”
DID THE EXTRA PIT CREW PRACTICE MAKE A DIFFERENCE TONIGHT? “We
didn’t make any catastrophic failures on pit road, which is a gain.
Before tonight, three out of the last four races we’ve had some
catastrophic pit issues with either a wheel falling off or a loose lug
nut or completely botching something, so we just really harped on
consistency. We cannot have those big mistakes. If you just get Layne
out in the top five, he’s gonna go win the race for you. That was our
goal tonight. We said, ‘You don’t have to be the fastest crew,’
and they did that. They did exactly what we asked of them, just don’t
make any big mistakes and they didn’t do that. I’m proud of those
guys. We’re building with them. We’ve got four left and now it’s
time to put the pressure on to make sure that they’re the best.”
WHEN HONEYCUTT HIT THE WALL WAS THAT WHEN YOU SAW YOUR OPENING? “Yeah,
I think he was going all he could to keep me behind him and I was gonna
pass him regardless, but, yeah, at that point it made it pretty easy.”
IS THERE ANYTHING YOUR CREW CHIEF HAS TAUGHT YOU ABOUT RACING? “I
think we’ve taught each other a lot. I mean, 2024 we were both rookies
in this series. He’s a rookie crew chief with a rookie driver. You
don’t see that a lot. You see the rookie drivers with the veteran crew
chiefs and you put the rookie crew chiefs with the veteran drivers.
You’ve got one person that knows exactly what they’re doing, so we
have battled and scraped our way from the bottom all the way to where
we’re at now together, and I wouldn’t want to do it with anybody
else. He’s a wheelman, too. I think if you put him in the truck, he
could run just as good as I can, just circumstances and opportunities
didn’t quite work out for him, but we have mad respect for each other
and what we’re able to do. He’s a smart cookie and I think our
relationship, 100 percent helps our performance on the racetrack.”
HOW BADLY DO YOU WANT TO WIN NEXT WEEK FOR DYLAN SINCE THAT’S HIS HOME
TRACK? “I’d love to win at Phoenix. I’ve run there a lot. I made
one of my first starts at Phoenix as well. I always love going out
there. It’s a great racetrack, always a lot of fun, very chaotic, but
I would really like to win at a track like that – a short track that I
feel like we’ve been so close to. Every time that we’ve gone we’ve
been fast or right in the mix. I think last year I was leading the race
with three to go until the caution came out or something. All of my
friends and family are here tonight and all of his friends and family
are gonna be there next week, so let’s go back-to-back for him.”
IN STAGE TWO YOU HAD A BIG MOMENT WITH RAJAH FIGHTING FOR SECOND. WERE
YOU WORRIED IN THAT MOMENT? “Yeah. When you’re 45 degrees sideways
and you’re looking at the infield, you’re thinking about your life
choices at that moment. Me and Rajah, we’re great friends. The second
it happened my spotter came on and said, ‘His spotter is waving at me.
He said it was an accident and he was trying to push you.’ He came
over to Victory Lane. He’s a great kid. We actually have the same
birthday to the day and year, so we are brothers from a different
mother. He’s a great friend of mine. He ran great tonight. He had a
solid truck. I hate he got torn up there at the end, but it’s always
fun to battle with Rajah. Me and him have always put on some epic
battles.”
DO YOU ENVISION THIS POTENTIALLY GOING DOWN TO MIAMI AND ONE OF YOU HAVE
TO WIN THE RACE TO WIN THE TITLE? “Yeah, the rate it’s going right
now, for sure. But, at the same time, that’s not something that I’m
really gonna think about. I can’t plan the future. We have Talladega
on our schedule. We don’t know what the heck is gonna happen there.
Nobody does, so that’s the wild card. I think after Talladega then we
can talk about that.”
WHEN YOU PASSED KADEN FOR THE LEAD IT LOOKED LIKE YOU WENT HIGH KNOWING
HE WOULD MIRROR DRIVE AND THEN CUT DOWN. IS THAT AN ACCURATE ASSESSMENT?
YOU KNEW WHAT HE WOULD DO AND IT GAVE YOU THAT ADVANTAGE? “One hundred
percent. I look at Kansas two weekends ago it was kind of the same thing
that happened there. He got in front of me and I made the bad decision
of trying to stay in it and be a hero and that didn’t work. I knew it
was gonna happen before we even got there and that’s what made it that
much more special.”
HOW MUCH MORE DIFFICULT IS IT WHEN YOU TWO KNOW EACH OTHER SO WELL? “I
don’t think difficult. I think that obviously we’re competitors. We
want to beat each other really bad and obviously get to the next level
one day. We both have a lot of respect for the race craft and the talent
that we both have. We’re down to the end. We both have really good
teams. I think that each of our teams are stronger and weaker in
different spots and we just have to play into that the best that we
can.”