LEBANON, Tenn. – Layne Riggs was not going to be denied at Nashville Superspeedway.
But both Rajah Caruth and Riggs’ Front Row Motorsports teammate Chandler Smith made the No. 34 truck earn it in the closing laps of the Craftsman Truck Series Allegiance 200.
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After racing NASCAR’s equivalent of a perfect game through the opening two stages, Riggs plummeted to 16th in the running order with an ill-handling truck early in the final stage. It was Caruth who was in position to capitalize late in the event.
On fresher tires, Riggs restarted 10th with 15 laps remaining and drove to third in quick order, a distant 3.5 seconds behind Caruth’s No. 7 truck with less than 10 laps remaining. With three laps remaining, though, Riggs overtook Smith for the runner-up spot and immediately was in the catbird seat.
Caruth weaved back and forth down the backstretch with two laps remaining, attempting to break Riggs’ draft. The newer tires proved beneficial, however, as Riggs dove deep into Turn 3, getting to the outside of Caruth through Turns 3 and 4 as the duo traded paint.
“It was super bold looking back,” Riggs said of his pass on Caruth. “I didn’t lift until I got to his outside, and I was like, ‘I’ll just figure the exit out later.'”
With a push from Smith, Riggs escaped with the lead and quickly put nearly a half-second on Caruth to win consecutive races for the second time in his Truck Series career.
“I blacked out those last 10 or 15 laps just to get to the front,” Riggs said in his post-race press conference. “Those guys gave me such a good truck in the first two stages; they gave me a shot at the end to win it back and claw back to the front. I knew I couldn’t leave here without that guitar.”
Caruth was largely powerless to prevent the winning pass.
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“The tire advantage was super strong,” Caruth told reporters after the race. “I gave up my right side and thought I ran him high enough, but he had a lot of grip and stayed there. He had me hooked and I said, ‘Man, I can’t turn myself to take us both out.’
“I was hoping I could run it in there and slide up, but he was nose up and I wasn’t going to take a guy running for points out of the race, and these 7 guys are running for [the owner’s championship]. I took my losses and came home second.”
The only way Caruth could have kept the lead was by putting himself in a position that likely would have ended in a crash. That’s something he wasn’t willing to do with Spire Motorsports chasing a title.
“You tell yourself in these situations that you want to come show up and win and come home with nothing but the trophy,” he stated. “But these guys are racing for owners’ points. I didn’t get all the way there in [Turns] 3 and 4 to shut it off, and I was like, ‘I can’t take them out of a finish.’
“They were teammates, obviously, so they weren’t going to give each other much of a battle. I had a lot of fun and definitely things I could have done better at the end.”
Smith had a front-row seat for the Riggs and Caruth battle. The Daytona winner from February was hoping to be in position should the two leaders tangle.
“Once [Riggs] got to [Caruth], I was trying to position myself if they have an incident on the frontstretch to try to capitalize to where I could possibly get the win myself,” Smith stated. “I was able to push the 34 out and let him get clear to the lead. Happy for those guys and happy for our 38 team as well.”
By sweeping all three stages and recording the Xfinity Fastest Lap, Riggs became the second driver in the series this season to score a maximum 76-point day. He leaped Kaden Honeycutt to take the regular-season championship lead.