Layne Riggs is the NASCAR Truck Series king of the streets.
The Front Row Motorsports driver followed up his St. Petersburg street race win in February by claiming victory in the first race at NASCAR’s Naval Base Coronado weekend in San Diego.
The series points leader started from second behind Kaden Honeycutt and quickly moved to the front early in the race with dominant form, but it wasn’t a drive in the park.
After winning Stage 1 and flipping Stage 2 during a rough and tumble outing that saw seven caution periods, including a red flag on lap 47 of 50 brought out when Tyler Ankrum hit and moved the Turn 16 wall, it all came down to a two-lap overtime shootout.
Riggs’ teammate Chandler Smith took the green flag alongside Honeycutt with Riggs and Tyler Reif behind them. Honeycutt pulled out ahead, but slammed into the Turn 1 wall and spun Smith.
Riggs, Reif Daniel Hemric slipped through unscathed and Hemric drove to the lead. The three then traded places and paint as Riggs dealt with a sputtering engine due to low fuel.
Riggs got by Hemric with one lap to go and Reif in the lead blowing smoke from a tire rub. It took nearly the entire 3.4-mile lap, but Riggs feinted left and threw off Reif, who missed the penultimate Turn 15 chicane as Riggs drove by to win what ended up being the longest Truck Series race in history at 2 hours 48 minutes.
“Lane van Riggsbergen came to play today, I’ll take a street course win, we’re undefeated in street courses,” Riggs said after the race, tipping his head to NASCAR’s current best street and road course driver, Shane van Gisbergen.
“I don’t even know what happened at the end, sparks flying, there’s people wrecking, staying in the throttle I was running out of fuel the entire last lap, it was like St. Pete all over again.”
