Nobody was going to beat Kaden Honeycutt in Saturday’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Black’s Tire 250 at Richmond Raceway. Not even Corey Heim, who came to life in the closing laps, could really challenge Honeycutt, who led 225 of 250 laps on his way to a very dominant second career victory.
Race Results: Black’s Tire 250 at Richmond
Honeycutt, who was expected to be great this season but has mostly just been good, says he came into this weekend’s event confused and frustrated by recent subpar performances, but that he and the No. 11 team don’t throw in the towel.
“Man, we never give up. We’ve had a rough last couple of weeks,” Honeycutt admitted after the Richmond win. “You know, we just wondered what the heck was going on. We’re not a seventh-to-10th-place team.”
On Saturday, Honeycutt and his team proved they were indeed not a seventh-to-10th-place team as they turned in their most impressive efforts since being paired together in the season-opening event at Daytona International Speedway.
While Heim turned up the wick in the closing laps, Honeycutt was able to fend him off, while also managing lapped traffic and crossed the finish line ahead of Heim by 1.313 seconds for the win.
“What a dominating day. I’ve never been able to do something like that before,” Honeycutt explained. “So, really good confidence for me. Hopefully, we’ll go to Loudon and do the same thing next week.”
For Heim, who will go full-time NASCAR Cup Series racing next season, it was a narrow miss of what could have been his fourth win of the season in just his eighth start.
Christian Eckes, the driver of the No. 91 McAnally Hilgemann Racing Chevrolet, was able to snag a solid third-place finish as he continues to try to set himself up for a push in the Chase for the championship. Eckes sits fourth in the standings after Saturday’s race at Richmond.
Shane van Gisbergen, who surprised with a pole position on Friday afternoon, had a great race going until a pit road penalty for an uncontrolled tire late in the event. Still, that wasn’t enough to keep the driver down, as he rallied the No. 7 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet back to a fourth-place finish. SVG will now look to mirror that performance in Saturday night’s NASCAR Cup Series event.
Grant Enfinger, who is looking more and more like a lock to compete in the Chase with each passing week, came home with a fifth-place result. Enfinger was attempting a strange fuel strategy at the end of the race, which gained him the lead. Enfinger was attempting to stretch the fuel to the finish, and while he may have pulled that off, he would likely not have finished ahead of where he ultimately ended up had he stuck with the strategy.
In the end, a caution for a crash involving Stewart Friesen with 37 laps remaining gave Enfinger a chance to get even on strategy with the rest of the field, and he capped off the day with a top-five result.
Jake Garcia, Chandler Smith, Tristan McKee, Gio Ruggiero, and Daniel Hemric rounded out the top-10 finishers in the Black’s Tire 250 at Richmond.
McKee, 16, was making his series debut on Saturday and came home with an impressive eighth-place finish.
With one race remaining until the Chase for the Truck Series championship begins, Tyler Ankrum is the final driver inside the Chase cutline, and he holds a 20-point advantage over Friesen heading into next week’s event.
Next up for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series is the Team EJP 175 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Saturday, August 22. That race will be televised on FS1, and TV coverage is set to kick off at 1:30 PM ET. The NASCAR Radio Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast of that event.
