Story By Matthew Thomerson/TheFourthTurn.com

HOMESTEAD, Fla. – After a wild night at Homestead-Miami Speedway, the ending was the same result but at a different track for TRICON Garage as Kaden Honeycutt claimed the win and 2026 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series title. 

On Friday night, despite not leading until Stage 3, a late pit stop on top of good execution on the final restart propelled Honeycutt out front, where he set sail and capped off the night with his fifth win of the season and maiden truck title.

“Man, this is amazing,” Honeycutt said. “I worked so damn hard to be here. Thank you to every owner. Thank you everybody that’s let me drive their race car for them, whether it was dirt, asphalt, road course, it didn’t matter. That is because of you guys, and I’m seeing it right here with this group behind me, as champions, and I’m so out of breath, I wish I could talk harder, but, man, thank you, fans, for showing up, and we just won at freaking Homestead and the damn championship.”

The title is the second for TRICON Garage and the No.11 team that claimed the title a year ago after a historic 12-win season by Corey Heim.

Honeycutt ended the season with five wins, 16 top-five and 19 top-10 finishes. He finished the season with 648 laps led.

Honeycutt, who began racing late models in the CARS Tour and in the local grassroots ranks at prominent tracks around the Southeast, started his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series career with part-time starts for Niece Motorsports in 2022.

Eventually, this led to a full-time effort for the Texas native in 2025, where he spent the majority of the season racing for a Playoff spot in the Niece camp, before an announcement that Honeycutt would drive the No.11 truck for TRICON Garage full-time in 2026.

Honeycutt was removed from the ride and finished out the season driving Halmar-Friesen Racing, where he came close to a title, making the championship 4 and coming home third in the standings.

Honeycutt’s move to Tricon was seen as his big moment, racing for the team that won the title the previous season, and he seemed to meet those expectations. After picking up his first-career victory at Watkins Glen in May, Honeycutt went on a late-season hot streak that included three more wins (Richmond, Kansas, and Phoenix) entering the finale at Homestead-Miami as the points leader.

His close title competitor, Layne Riggs, who came in leading the series in wins (7) and within 30 points of the lead, had two separate instances of a flat tire early on under green-flag conditions, putting him laps down and ending his night before it truly began. He finished 32nd, six laps down.

Despite the career-high season in wins, top-fives, laps led and more, Riggs will look back on the final stretch as a series of “what ifs” after entering The Chase as the No. 1 overall seed.

“Yeah, I had plenty of time to think about it when I was about 10 laps down out there,” Riggs said. “Kind of just thinking about the year we had, the success that we had. Obviously we weren’t able to put the consistency together to be champions tonight. We knew we were going to have to run an almost perfect race. That’s hard to do anytime, any series, any level and division.

“But I’m just proud of the entire team that we were even in the mix, we even had a chance to become champion. It was disappointing to know I didn’t even know what my truck was going to be.” 

Despite the title fight being a two-horse race, there was much movement throughout the rest of The Chase standings and the race, where it appeared Christian Eckes was on his way to his first win of the season. He ultimately came home second, settling for his fourth runner-up finish in almost as many races. Daniel Hemric finished third, making two McAnally-Hilgemann Racing trucks in the top-three.

Ty Majeski finished fourth, followed by Stewart Friesen in fifth. Corey Heim finished sixth, Chandler Smith seventh, Jake Garcia eighth, Grant Enfinger ninth, and Corey Lajoie 10th.

The 2027 NASCAR FedEx Freight Truck Series season begins with the season-opener at Daytona International Speedway on Friday, Feb.19. 

Photo Credit: Patricia McCormack/TheFourthTurn.com