Riggs: Short Track Product In Trucks ‘Just Embarrassing’

Layne Riggs (34) battled to an 11th-place finish at Martinsville Speedway after an early spin. (Scotte Sprinkle/Race Face Digital photo)

MARTINSVILLE, Va. – While Layne Riggs finished 11th in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Martinsville Friday night, he was involved in two incidents that were no fault of his own and called out the racing etiquette of the field at the half-mile paperclip as a result.

The first incident was on lap 24 due to contact from Connor Mosack in turn three. Riggs was running fifth when he got turned around, but since the spin was early on he was able to rally.

The rest of the race, Riggs worked to charge through the field, with the help of fresher tires than many of those around him. With six laps to go, he’d fought back up to sixth place, however it didn’t last long.

Riggs was three wide on the outside of both Ben Rhodes and Lawless Alan, when Alan drifted up slightly into Riggs in turns one and two. The contact nearly sent Riggs around, but he was able to save it after getting straightened out exiting onto the backstretch.

He fell to 14th after the chaotic contact and spent the rest of the race working back to 11th.

“I think kerfuffle [is] the best way to put it; that was our whole night,” said the Bahama, N.C., native. “I’m a short track guy and I love short track racing, but I hate this racetrack [at] the national series level. It’s really sad when the late model race here [at Martinsville] is the cleanest one there is. It’s just so crazy in the Truck Series.

“You can be doing everything right, and then the guy that’s five [cars] back hits [someone], he hits [someone] and then you get hit and you get spun around. Who do you even get mad at at that point? It's annoying.”

The second-year Front Row Motorsports driver also noted how difficult it was to get back through the field.

Layne Riggs spins early in Friday night's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway. (David Rosenblum/Nigel Kinrade Photography)

“People think at short tracks you can drive back to the front, [but] the dirty air here is really bad,” Riggs explained of the conditions in traffic at Martinsville. “I feel like it ranks up there with a mile track [in terms of turbulence]. It feels so bad in the center of the corner. It’s amazing how aero-dependent these things are and how much [clean air] means.

“I feel like we did everything right today. The team didn’t make any mistakes. I feel like I didn’t make any mistakes. [I] just got used up by several people. That's Martinsville, but I’ve learned not to like this track.”

The cleanliness of the Truck Series arguably was at its worst during the 2023 championship race, when Carson Hocevar and Corey Heim – who were both Championship 4 drivers – wrecked each other.

Hocevar spun Heim while battling, and Heim paid back Hocevar later in the race, crashing them both. The race then ended with four overtime attempts, leading to conversations with NASCAR on how to try and help clean up the on-track product.

Through four races this season, there had only been 17 drivers combined who failed to finish, the smallest number in series history in that span. It seemed to be an omen of better, cleaner racing, before Friday night’s madness in the closing laps.

When Riggs was asked if any conversations could be had again with the current field he was extremely blunt in his assessment.

“No. It goes right over people’s heads. We can talk all we want,” he stated. “I know the leader got wrecked twice tonight. That’s just embarrassing. I feel like we’ve done a really good job as a series so far this year. Everybody’s cleaned their act up. (But) this race right here set it all back, at least running in the bee’s nest. If I had run fifth all night long, I’d probably be like ‘Oh it was a clean race.’ But it was rough.

“It really gets old,” he added of getting dumped in short-track fashion. “I’ve raced four national races here – one Xfinity (Series) race and three truck races. Every race, I’ve gotten spun out by somebody and [it’s] not been my fault. We fought all night long and did the best we could. But it sucks to end up like that.”

Riggs has two career wins so far, winning at both the Milwaukee Mile and Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway last year. He also has six wins in the CARS Late Model Stock Tour.

Fittingly for Riggs, however, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series takes a week off before heading to Bristol for the first of two Truck Series stops at The Last Great Colosseum this season.

Broadcast coverage of the WeatherGuard Truck Race from Bristol is slated for Friday night, April 11 at 7:30 p.m. ET, live on FS1, the NASCAR Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.