Layne Riggs and the Front Row Motorsports No. 38 team are dominating the NASCAR Truck Series Playoffs but there is just one problem.
He didn’t qualify for the Round of 10.
It appears they took that personally because Riggs has opened the seven-race gauntlet with a clean sweep of both the Milwaukee Mile and Bristol on Thursday night. Riggs, who is likely back at Front Row next season, is showing why he should be considered a championship threat as soon as the season begins.
This is a campaign that has been dominated by Corey Heim and Christian Eckes and Riggs has successfully taken the fight to them two races in a row. Riggs says it’s more incumbent on the championship contenders to be mindful of him than the other way around.
“I’m going to race a certain way, and I did that tonight, aggressive, hard and I don’t care if you’re a playoff driver or not, I’m going to race you the same way, clean, hard and respectful racing,” Riggs said. “If they want to tango with me, that’s on them.
“They have to think about the pros and cons of that. They are running for the points and they have to think, ‘hey, I’m running second and it’s probably not worth it to push Layne, battle Layne or sneak to his outside on a late restart.’
“I don’t have that mindset this year and I think we all have a good understanding.”
It was indeed ‘clean, hard and respectful racing,’ and no one up front paid any consequences for it.
Playoff stays tight
Corey Heim, Nick Sanchez and Christian Eckes have advanced to the second round no matter what happens next weekend at Kansas Speedway.
Ty Majeski dodged a bullet.
He was awful in practice, made a late session adjustment to put the fifth fastest time on the board but then only qualified 19th. A unapproved adjustment sent them to the rear of the field and it was grind, at a track where passing is a challenge, just to get to P7 by the end.
“I’ll stay out of why we started in the back,” Majeski said. “It was just a miscommunication. We went from, we’re coming to Bristol, a place I’ve won and think we have a shot to win. We didn’t unload well, got the penalty, so now our mind has to shift to ‘how do we maximize.’