Jake Garcia was not one of the ten drivers racing for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series championship when the series opened its Chase, the ten-driver playoff that decides the title, at Bristol Motor Speedway on Thursday night, Sept. 17. He had finished the regular season with 404 points, 11 behind Tyler Ankrum, who took the last place in the field.
He won the race anyway. Garcia, 21, drove the No. 98 ThorSport Racing Ford from 12th on the grid to victory in the UNOH 250, led 104 laps and beat Bayley Currey to the line by 1.305 seconds. It was his first Truck Series win, in his 94th start. His 69 points were the most anyone scored on the night, and none of them can help him win the title.
Asked in his post-race news conference whether winning the Chase opener added anything, Garcia said: "I don't really care, honestly. It's the Chase. We're not in it, but we didn't really deserve to be in it either."
The driver who leads the Chase standings had a very different night. Layne Riggs, the top seed, led the first 135 laps and finished 32nd. His lead over Kaden Honeycutt fell from 25 points to three.
How Garcia won it
Qualifying was called off for lightning, and NASCAR set the field by its qualifying formula. Riggs started on the pole and Garcia 12th.
The race was run in three segments, called stages, of 65, 65 and 120 laps, with bonus points for the top ten at the end of each of the first two. At the break after the first stage, Riggs and several other front-runners stayed on track while Garcia pitted, and Garcia was first off pit road among the trucks that stopped. At the second break, every truck on the lead lap came in. Garcia's crew gave him fuel and no tires, and he left pit road first again. Riggs's crew had trouble changing his right-side tires, and he came out sixth.
Garcia led from lap 136 to lap 181. A crash involving several trucks brought out a red flag that stopped the race for more than 14 minutes; Honeycutt led the lap after the restart, and Garcia took the lead back on lap 183. On the restart on lap 220, Stewart Friesen made it three wide on the backstretch and cleared both trucks for the lead. Garcia passed him on lap 230 and was not caught.
Second place was the best finish of Currey's career, in his 84th Truck Series start. It was his first race of the season. Friesen was third, Justin Haley fourth and Tristan McKee fifth.
ThorSport Racing had not won a Truck Series race since Phoenix in November 2024, a stretch of 43 races. Garcia is the ninth different winner this season.
What it did to the championship
Riggs won both stages, which was worth 20 points. His night came apart after that. He pitted from third on lap 161 with a vibration, then made contact with Nick Leitz after the lap 220 restart, picked up a tire rub and came in for repairs on lap 232. He finished 16 laps down, and the finish added five points to the 20 he already had.
Honeycutt was second in both stages, then reported a vibration and pitted under caution on lap 215, restarting 18th. He finished eighth and scored 47 points, the most of any driver in the Chase.
Chandler Smith, third in both stages, was penalized for speeding on pit road during the second-stage stops and later pitted with a vibration. He finished 24th, three laps down.
Christian Eckes scored the fewest points of the ten. He hit the wall after contact with Grant Enfinger on lap 43, finished 30th and dropped from fourth in the standings to eighth.
The totals below are large because of the playoff reset at the end of the regular season, which moved the ten Chase drivers onto their own scale, starting at 2,030 points, and left everyone else's totals as they were.
| Driver | Before Bristol | Points at Bristol | After Bristol | Behind leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Layne Riggs | 2,100 | 25 | 2,125 | Leader |
| Kaden Honeycutt | 2,075 | 47 | 2,122 | 3 |
| Chandler Smith | 2,065 | 30 | 2,095 | 30 |
| Ty Majeski | 2,050 | 40 | 2,090 | 35 |
| Giovanni Ruggiero | 2,055 | 31 | 2,086 | 39 |
| Grant Enfinger | 2,045 | 27 | 2,072 | 53 |
| Daniel Hemric | 2,040 | 29 | 2,069 | 56 |
| Christian Eckes | 2,060 | 7 | 2,067 | 58 |
| Ben Rhodes | 2,035 | 29 | 2,064 | 61 |
| Tyler Ankrum | 2,030 | 24 | 2,054 | 71 |
Garcia's win lifts him to 473 points and 11th in the series standings, one place ahead of Friesen, who missed the field by seven points. He is 1,652 points behind Riggs. He can win races the rest of the way. He cannot win the championship.
The Chase moves to Kansas Speedway on Saturday, Sept. 26. Riggs arrives three points ahead, having led more laps at Bristol than anyone else in the race.