Honeycutt Leads At ‘Dega, But Fades In Late Shuffle

Kaden Honeycutt (Nigel Kinrade/NKP photo)

TALLADEGA, Ala. – Three days after inking a full-time contract for next year’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series campaign, Kaden Honeycutt had his latest chance to contend for a maiden victory with Niece Motorsports.

The 21-year-old from Willow Park, Texas, qualified 18th for the Love’s RV Stop 225 at Talladega Superspeedway and laid low deep in the draft early on, anticipating the potential for early chaos and multi-car accidents marring the proceedings.

When the first two stages were largely clean, however, Honeycutt and crew chief Phil Gould had to lean on a late strategy call to find their way to the front of the field.

Pitting with 28 laps left, several laps after a smaller group of front-running cars, Honeycutt was able to cycle out to the front of the effective lead draft following his final stop.

Moments later, a caution waved for an eight-truck incident behind him, leading three drivers that had no yet pitted down pit lane for service and cycling Honeycutt to the top spot on lap 65 of 85.

Honeycutt stayed at the point for three laps, but was hung out to dry in the outside lane on the ensuing lap-69 restart, dropping anchor to the back of the lead draft outside the top 10.

Kaden Honeycutt on pit road during his final stop Friday at Talladega Superspeedway. (Nigel Kinrade/NKP photo)

After that, nose damage sustained as Honeycutt was coming down for his final stop hampered the No. 45 Venture Foods Chevrolet Silverado RST, slowly dropping him off the main pack as the final laps wound down.

Though his gap to the leaders allowed Honeycutt to stay out of the final-lap crash that broke out coming to the checkered flag, he was a distant and frustrating 19th after believing he was in position to race for his first Truck Series win before circumstances intervened and scuttled the effort.

“I decided to run in the back early because people were moving all over the place. Ran there for the most part of both stages, but the strategy was perfect in the third stage,” said Honeycutt. “We got cycled to the lead, but ended up getting nose damage from pitting. Unfortunately, we got hung out on the next restart, and on the last restart, we lost the draft because the nose was punched in. Everything kind of fell apart at that point.

“We executed great in the last stage, but it just didn’t end up working out for us,” Honeycutt continued. “Thank you to Al (Niece), Cody (Efaw), Lane (Moore) and Moore’s Venture Foods for the opportunity to contend up front late, and we’ll learn from this and keep building toward our championship run next year.”

Knowing the opportunity that laid in front of him to chase what could have been his first Truck Series win in just his 31st start left Honeycutt struggling to hold his head up as he processed his emotions afterward.

“Disappointment, man,” Honeycutt noted of his immediate feelings. “I really don’t know what else to say about how the end played out there. To get all the way up there, execute everything perfectly, end up leading the race right there at the end … just to have people leave you out to hang, it really stings.

“I hate it most because there’s nothing really you can do about it. Just the unfortunate part of the draft,” he added. “I don’t really like [restrictor] plate racing at all, and the team definitely deserved a whole lot better than what we ended up with. I get to race a dirt late model the rest of the weekend across the street [at Talladega Short Track], so we’ll try to shake everything off and have fun there.

“As far as the truck deal, we’ll move on to Homestead and see if we can’t redeem ourselves there.”

The No. 45 Niece Motorsports team remains ninth in the Truck Series entrant standings despite being eliminated from the owner championship playoffs at Kansas Speedway in late September.

Honeycutt will have two weeks off in the Truck Series schedule before he and Niece Motorsports visit Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway.

Broadcast coverage of the second race in the playoff Round of 8 will air Saturday, Oct. 26 at noon ET, live on FS1, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.