Kaden Honeycutt had an impressive afternoon and evening at Kansas Speedway on Saturday. The driver of the No. 11 TRICON Garage Toyota swept the Stage wins on the night and led a race-high 111 laps. However, a bit of late-race pit strategy left the racer playing from behind with under 20 laps to go.
Race Results: Race to End Suicide 200 at Kansas
Honeycutt, who took four fresh tires on his final pit stop of the race, restarted from the fifth position, and Layne Riggs, on two tires, restarted from the third position, while Daniel Dye and Mini Tyrrell elected not to pit and held the top two spots.
As Riggs shoved Dye into Turn 1 on the restart to gain the lead of the race, it would be short-lived. After Riggs was credited with leading the 122nd lap of the race, Honeycutt would power past him with 12 laps remaining. After a slight challenge from Riggs for a few laps, Honeycutt never looked back as he cruised to the win.
After the win, Honeycutt credited his team for the incredible performance.
“Great job by this Safelite crew. This No. 11 for TRICON Garage, Scott Zipadelli (crew chief), is the freaking goat. My pit crew, man, they are just the best. There’s nothing else I can say about that,” Honeycutt exclaimed. “I knew the two tires were definitely going to be hard to gain on the 34 (Layne Riggs), he had really good speed. We just executed, just executed all night. We had really good speed all night.”
Riggs, the point leader coming into the night, pushed his No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford F-150 too far over the edge in his pursuit of Honeycutt, and got into the outside wall with two laps to go. Riggs would stumble to a 19th-place finish.
Honeycutt’s near-perfect race combined with Riggs’ rough outing allowed Honeycutt to take over the series point lead. With five races left in the Chase, Honeycutt now holds a 37-point advantage over Riggs in the championship fight.
Christian Eckes, another of the 10 drivers vying for the championship, would cross the finish line in the runner-up position, 1.358 seconds behind Honeycutt.
Brent Crews, a NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series regular, finished third behind the wheel of the No. 5 TRICON Garage Toyota.
Chase contenders Daniel Hemric, Ben Rhodes, and Chandler Smith recorded finishes of fourth, fifth, and sixth.
Nick Leitz, Tanner Gray, Jake Garcia, and Corey LaJoie rounded out the top-10 finishers in the Race to Stop Suicide 200 at Kansas Speedway.
In addition to Riggs, it was a rough night for some other Chase contenders. Tyler Ankrum would come home with a 25th-place finish after suffering a flat tire late in the race. Ty Majeski would finish four laps off the pace in 29th after suffering a flat right-front tire in the final Stage.
And Grant Enfinger, who was leading the race when a nearly five-hour red flag ensued for rain, saw an incredible reversal of fortune when the race resumed.
Enfinger would suffer a cut tire late in the race and would come to a stop on track in an effort to get a much-needed caution. This would result in a two-lap penalty from NASCAR, which concluded Enfinger had stopped to intentionally bring out the caution. Enfinger would finish 31st, five laps down.
