Kaden Honeycutt leads Layne Riggs by 39 points in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Chase, the 10-driver playoff that decides the championship, with three races left. Neither has won at Talladega Superspeedway, where the series races Friday afternoon.
Friday is also a cutoff. Any driver more than 153 points behind the leader after Talladega is mathematically out of the championship, according to NASCAR. Christian Eckes is third, 112 back, Chandler Smith fourth, 117 back, and Ty Majeski fifth, 135 back. Daniel Hemric is 148 back and Giovanni Ruggiero 151, two inside the line. Grant Enfinger, 184 back, Ben Rhodes, 188, and Tyler Ankrum, 201, are already past it and have to gain on the leader Friday to stay in. Enfinger is the only Chase driver who has won at all three remaining tracks, including twice at Talladega, most recently in 2024.
The Love's RV Stop 225 starts at 4 p.m. ET on FS1 and on NASCAR Racing Network radio. It is 85 laps on the 2.66-mile track, and the first two stages, the segments that pay bonus points before the finish, end on laps 20 and 40. Qualifying is at 12:30 p.m. ET on FS2. After Talladega come Martinsville on Oct. 30 and the finale at Homestead-Miami on Nov. 6.
Honeycutt drives the No. 11 Toyota for TRICON Garage and has four wins this season. Riggs drives the No. 34 Ford for Front Row Motorsports and has seven wins. Honeycutt has three Truck Series starts at Talladega, with a best finish of 10th last October. Riggs has two, and finished fifth in the same race.
Honeycutt has been the steadier of the two. His average finish in the first four Chase races is 3.3, the best of the 10 drivers, according to NASCAR. Riggs opened the Chase 32nd at Bristol and 19th at Kansas and averages 13.8. Honeycutt has finished in the top 10 in seven straight races, the longest streak in the series this season.
Talladega has not been kind to plans. The last nine Truck races there went to nine different drivers, and five of the last seven went to drivers winning for the first time. Six of the last eight were decided by a pass on the last lap. Last October, Ruggiero, Honeycutt's teammate at TRICON, won from the pole, the first starting spot, for his first series win.
After winning at Phoenix on Oct. 16, Honeycutt said the 39-point gap "could flip up on its head pretty quickly" at Talladega. "You can go from running first to 35th really quickly," he said.
Tony Stewart, the three-time Cup Series champion, drives the No. 25 Ram for Kaulig Racing, his second race this season after finishing 36th at Daytona in February. YouTube personality Cleetus McFarland drives the No. 4 Chevrolet for Niece Motorsports, and Corey Heim, who has won three of his seven starts this season, is in TRICON's No. 1 Toyota.
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