Entering The Chase presented by Mobil 1 second in points, Honeycutt has plenty of reason to feel confident and optimistic heading into Thursday’s postseason opener. And he is both.
The 23-year-old Texan likes the seven-race schedule that will determine the series championship, saying he and his team really have “no weak spots” in that stretch. He led the championship (for five weeks) for the first time in his career and enters The Chase 25 points behind Riggs in the points reset – the two drivers dominating first or second place in the standings for most of the season.
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It’s already been a career year for Honeycutt, whose 11 top-five finishes are nearly triple his previous best entire-season tally. Most reassuring to his title chances, he earned his first two career series wins at the Watkins Glen International road course and then the Richmond Raceway short oval only two weeks before the pre-championship stretch break.
“If we can go out and start really good at Bristol, be really consistent,” Honeycutt said, noting that Chase competition in the NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series has been quite dramatic already.
“We’ve obviously seen the last couple races for Cup have completely turned upside down for most of the guys,” he added. “I feel like if we just execute, do our own deal, race our race and not try to do anything else other than that and not focus on points so much, just focus on winning, and everything kind of takes care of itself after that.”
Importantly, his No. 11 Tricon Garage Toyota team is led by one of the winningest crew chiefs in series history, Scott Zipadelli, who led Corey Heim to 12 victories and the championship last year.
“Having a crew chief like Scott and the whole team that’s a championship-caliber team is definitely very easy to get used to,” Honeycutt said. “Scott has helped me tremendously on my race craft, and he’s done a lot of things for me outside of truck racing that’s led to winning races.”