Chandler Smith had NASCAR’s first Truck Series race at Naval Base Coronado in his hands when the San Diego opener was stopped by a late red flag.
The latest FOX Sports race feed showed Smith leading the Navy 250 after taking control on lap 44, only for a caution on lap 47 to become a red flag at 9:49pm ET. Layne Riggs, who had already won Stage 1 and led 20 laps, sat second, with pole-sitter Kaden Honeycutt third as the inaugural Truck race on the new street course moved into a tense final pause.
Coronado had no soft landing
The race had already carried the feel of a proper street-course stress test before the stoppage. Parker Kligerman won Stage 2, Riggs had spent much of the middle phase in control, and Smith’s lap-44 move shifted the race just as the finish began to tighten.
It was exactly the kind of jeopardy NASCAR’s new San Diego weekend had threatened to create from the first practice laps. Concrete walls, crane-track bumps and heavy braking zones had already made this a weekend with very little margin, a theme ReadMotorsport looked at earlier when San Diego’s street-race debut became a real test.
That warning followed the Trucks all the way into race conditions. FOX’s live timeline listed Corey LaJoie and Jamie McMurray as involved in an accident during the lap-33 caution, while the field later bunched again after a lap-40 yellow. By the time the red flag arrived, the first national-series race around the base had become less about novelty and more about survival, restart execution and nerve.
Smith, Riggs and Honeycutt turn it into a front-row fight
Smith’s rise was particularly sharp because he started third, directly behind the two drivers who had shaped the event from qualifying. Honeycutt’s pole had already given the opener a title-fight feel, with Honeycutt putting himself and Riggs on the front row before the race had even started.
Riggs then backed up his practice pace with the Stage 1 win and the biggest chunk of laps led, while Honeycutt stayed in the lead battle after controlling the opening phase. Smith’s late move did not erase that work, but it did change the entire complexion of the finish.
Jimmie Johnson also sat inside the race’s early headline pack after qualifying fourth and leading during Stage 2, making his return more than a ceremonial appearance. His presence had already raised the temperature around the Truck opener, and ReadMotorsport covered why Johnson’s San Diego return gave Coronado another layer of intrigue.
The key point now is simple: NASCAR’s San Diego experiment did not need long to become a proper race-weekend examination. Smith had the lead when the red flag came out, but the bigger picture was already clear. Coronado was giving the Truck Series the tight, awkward, incident-prone opener that a brand-new street circuit was always likely to produce.
For NASCAR, that may be the most useful early evidence of all.
