One year ago, Kaden Honeycutt finished third in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship, two spots behind Corey Heim and the No. 11 Tricon Garage Toyota.
Can’t beat ’em? Join ’em.
Honeycutt won the 2026 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series title Friday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, winning the season finale and outlasting Front Row Motorsports’ Layne Riggs over a thrilling seven-race Chase. The championship comes in his second full-time season, bookending a story of perseverance for the once little-known driver.
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“Man, this is amazing. I’ve worked so damn hard to be here,” Honeycutt said, gasping for breath just moments after exiting his truck on the Homestead frontstretch. “Thank you to every owner, thank you everybody that’s let me drive the race car for them, whether it was dirt, asphalt, road course, doesn’t matter. That is because of you guys I’m sitting right here with this group behind me as champions.”
Honeycutt secured the title with relative ease at Homestead. Though he made the race-winning pass with 15 laps to go, Riggs suffered two blown tires, falling several laps off the pace. It would’ve taken remarkable circumstances for Riggs to mount a comeback over the final 100 circuits at the Florida oval.
“The first half of the race I did not want to push it too hard,” he said. “It fell in our hands. I put my nuts on the dash and wanted to win the race.”
Riggs was the most dominant driver over the first 18 races this season, winning six times to earn the No. 1 seed for The Chase presented by Mobil 1. Honeycutt put up stout numbers himself, winning twice for his first two national-series victories. The Willow Park, Texas, native scored his first win in May at Watkins Glen International, coming mere hours after his first career ARCA Menards Series win at the 2.45-mile road course. Honeycutt’s second truck triumph came dominantly, leading 225 of 250 laps at Richmond Raceway in August – setting a tone for the postseason.
A tone that he certainly lived up to.
Starting The Chase with an eighth-place finish, Honeycutt earned top fives in the next four, including wins at Kansas Speedway and Phoenix Raceway. He had one of the best trucks in the antepenultimate race at Talladega Superspeedway but slid back to fifth in the closing moments despite leading late.
Honeycutt was hardly immune to adversity, either. At Charlotte, he brushed the wall while battling Riggs for the victory, opening the door for the No. 34 to capitalize and cut the championship gap to 17 points. At Martinsville, late contact from Tristan McKee shuffled Honeycutt from the top five to 14th, trimming his advantage over Riggs to 20 points heading into Homestead.
Riggs needed to play catch-up from the get-go. In the opener at Bristol, the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports team had a loose wheel in the final stage, finishing several laps down in 32nd. A bounce back seemed in order at Kansas, but while battling Honeycutt for the win, Riggs slapped the wall and dropped back to finish 19th — another costly mishap.
Riggs won the next race at Charlotte to cut his deficit to 17 points, but Honeycutt rebuilt his advantage to 43 after Talladega. Even after Riggs dominated Martinsville and reduced the gap to 20, he still faced an uphill battle heading into Homestead.
Honeycutt’s remarkable title-clinching performance comes a year after heartbreak. But he was never supposed to be this close.
In 2025, Honeycutt planned to embark on a full campaign in Niece Motorsports’ No. 45 Chevrolet. He raced for Al Niece in the first 16 events, climbing as high as fifth in points by the midpoint of summer. But before Watkins Glen, Niece released him, saying that Honeycutt had signed with a different team and manufacturer for 2026.
Young’s Motorsports picked him up for a one-off at The Glen to remain eligible for the postseason. For the playoffs, he shifted to Halmar-Friesen Racing’s No. 52 Toyota in place of Stewart Friesen — who had suffered severe injuries in a dirt modified crash in Canada — for the rest of the season.
In his eight races, Honeycutt finished no worse than 18th, recording three straight top 10s to finish the campaign and posing a serious threat to Corey Heim’s championship hopes.
Heim won a series-record 12 races en route to a championship last year — all with the Scott Zipadelli-led No. 11 team that Honeycutt has now driven to a championship.
“This team is a freaking Hall of Fame team,” Honeycutt said. “Scott Zipadelli is the best damn crew chief on that pit road. He’s the best man out of there. He’s not just a Hall of Fame crew chief, he’s a Hall of Fame man. He’s done nothing but mentor me and make me better every single week.”
Before embarking on full-time NASCAR racing, Honeycutt raced three part-time seasons in the Truck Series. He first joined Niece as a driver in 2023, also taking on a shop mechanic and fabrication role while making additional starts for Young’s and Roper Racing.
Honeycutt is a former CARS Pro Late Model Tour champion. As he cut his teeth in the regional ranks, he raced for RFK Racing in the eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series.
And the emotions of that journey came flooding out Friday night.
“This is for all the dirt track racers back at home in Texas that I raced with when I was 12 years old all the way until 17,” he said. “I worked with my daddy in the shop for so dang long to even be in the dirt track business running Friday and Saturday, running a stock car, running a modified, anything I could hop in.
“I moved to North Carolina to work on the trucks. The only opportunity I had to was to work on the vehicles I was going to drive.”
Less than five years ago, Honeycutt was hardly known. Now, he’s a Truck Series champion – and the sky is the limit.
This story will be updated.