Kaden Honeycutt and Chandler Smith left San Diego with the kind of points damage that can make a chaotic street-course night linger long after the trophies are handed out.
Layne Riggs’ overtime victory at Naval Base Coronado was the headline result, but the deeper championship consequence came behind him. Honeycutt finished 23rd and Smith 22nd after late-race trouble, while Riggs moved to 562 points and stretched his advantage over Honeycutt to 65, according to the published San Diego race results and standings.
It turned a night that began as a direct title fight into a brutal reset for the two drivers trying hardest to stop Riggs from opening clear air at the top of the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series table.
Honeycutt’s pole turned into damage limitation
Honeycutt had arrived at the inaugural San Diego Truck race with exactly the kind of platform a challenger wants. He had taken pole for the Navy 250, started alongside Riggs, and spent much of the opening phase in the lead fight on a circuit that was always likely to punish impatience.
That made the final result sting more. The early pace and pole position underlined why Honeycutt entered the weekend as Riggs’ nearest threat, but the closing restart chaos left him classified 23rd, one place behind Smith and far from the points haul he needed.
ReadMotorsport had already noted how Honeycutt’s pole gave San Diego an immediate title-fight edge. The race delivered on that promise, just not in the way his side of the garage would have wanted.
Smith’s late lead slipped into a costly finish
Smith’s race was just as painful. He had a chance to convert the late drama into a major points swing of his own, with Jayski’s live race log recording him in the lead with five laps remaining before the cautions, red flag and overtime sequence changed the shape of the finish.
On the decisive restart, Jayski reported that Smith and Honeycutt got together, with Smith spinning into the barrier and Honeycutt dropping back. Riggs and Daniel Hemric then fought for the lead, before Riggs escaped the disorder and drove off to win.
For Smith, the result followed the same pattern ReadMotorsport covered in its San Diego red-flag piece: speed was not the problem. Surviving the final exchanges was.
Riggs gets the cleanest exit
The wider race numbers tell the story of a night that offered little margin. Jayski listed 16 lead changes among six drivers and seven caution periods for 13 yellow-flag laps, with Hemric second, Kaz Grala third, Landen Lewis fourth and Ty Majeski completing the top five.
Riggs was not immune from the chaos, but he came out of it with the result and the standings cushion. That is the difference between a dramatic win and a weekend that changes the regular-season picture.
The existing ReadMotorsport race report on Riggs’ overtime San Diego victory captured the finish. The championship table now gives it a harder edge: Honeycutt and Smith had chances to make the night theirs, and both left Coronado with ground to recover.
