Rain grounded the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series at Kansas Speedway again Friday, wiping out both practice and qualifying ahead of Saturday’s Race to Stop Suicide 200.
With ARCA’s session already scrubbed, Saturday’s 36-truck field is set entirely by the rulebook, adding pressure to a Chase field still rattled from Bristol.
Why NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Qualifying Was Cancelled
Rain fell on and off through the afternoon, and crews never got the track dry enough to run a lap. NASCAR called off both truck sessions by early evening, according to NASCAR insider Bob Pockrass.
That leaves the grid set by metric score, the formula NASCAR uses when weather wipes out track time. Nick Sanchez earns Saturday’s pole position, with Jake Garcia starting alongside him on the front row, according to Bob Pockrass.
Sportsbooks list Kaden Honeycutt as the favorite, with points leader Layne Riggs, Christian Eckes and Chandler Smith close behind, according to a BetUS odds board. Honeycutt owns the field’s best average finish on 1 1/2-mile tracks this season and has run fourth, fourth and eighth in his last three Kansas starts.
Layne Riggs’ Slim Points Lead Faces Kansas Test
Riggs, driving the Front Row Motorsports No. 34 Ford, swept both stages and led 135 laps at Bristol before a loose wheel and wall contact dropped him to 32nd, cutting his championship cushion to three points, according to a report from Speedway Digest. He has one top five in three career Kansas starts.
The Chase field is scattered through the grid. Ruggiero starts third, Honeycutt fifth, Majeski eighth, Enfinger 10th, Ben Rhodes 11th, Daniel Hemric 12th, Tyler Ankrum 14th and Smith 15th. Riggs, the points leader, qualifies just 22nd, with Eckes even further back in 25th.
Enfinger and Eckes are the only former Kansas winners in the field. Kansas also opens a stretch of three 1.5-mile ovals among the Chase’s final six races, alongside Charlotte and Homestead-Miami.
“I’m excited for Kansas and Charlotte. I feel like if we keep bringing the speed we had… we will be in a lot better position,” said Gio Ruggiero, fifth in the Chase standings, in comments quoted by Speedway Digest.
Riggs leads Honeycutt by three points, with Smith, Majeski and Ruggiero trailing by 30 to 39 points, according to a standings report from SC Motorsports Media. Saturday covers 134 laps and 201 miles for a $789,700 purse.
Sanchez, born June 10, 2001, in Miami, came up through NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity pipeline. His father was eight during the 1980 Mariel boatlift that carried Cuban refugees to South Florida, and Sanchez started racing go-karts at 12 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
“From the time that I first strapped into a go-kart at Homestead at 12 years old, this was the goal,” Sanchez said, in comments to The Daily Downforce. He won the 2022 ARCA Menards Series title and 2023 Truck Rookie of the Year.
The Truck Series traces to off-road racers Jim Venable, Jim Smith, Dick Landfield and Frank “Scoop” Vessels, who wanted a pavement tour as desert racing faded. It debuted as the SuperTruck Series in 1995, according to a Frontstretch history of the series, when Mike Skinner won the opener for Richard Childress on his way to the first title. Craftsman signed on as sponsor the following year.
It remains NASCAR’s only national series built around pickup-style stock cars, still bridging ARCA and late models into O’Reilly and Cup rides. Kyle Busch, Austin Dillon, Erik Jones and Chase Briscoe all raced trucks before becoming Cup regulars.
Why Is NASCAR Truck Series Kansas Qualifying Canceled Today? Who Gets the Pole?