Honeycutt Controls Phoenix Finish to Extend Truck Series Lead

Kaden Honeycutt took control when Phoenix Raceway's final restart opened the door, then refused to give Christian Eckes another opportunity. Honeycutt led the last 53 laps of Friday's Zero Carbon Bioethanol 150 Powered by POET and beat Eckes by 1.556 seconds. Layne Riggs finished third, leaving Honeycutt with a 39-point championship advantage after a race that rewarded sustained pace rather than a late scramble. It was Honeycutt's fourth victory of the season and his second in the Chase.

The decisive change followed a very different opening act. Pole winner Riggs led the first 43 laps, but Ty Majeski worked past Landen Lewis and closed on the leader. Racing News described Riggs encountering Justin Haley's lapped truck as Majeski attacked the lower lane. Majeski completed the pass and collected the first stage, then controlled most of the second segment. He swept both stages and led 49 laps, yet the race's final sequence left him fourth rather than celebrating a sweep of the evening.

Stewart Friesen used a two-tire stop to take track position before the final restart. Honeycutt emerged as the leader when racing resumed, with Eckes becoming his closest pursuer. Motorsport.com's report described Majeski being delayed behind Friesen as the field accelerated, a costly moment after the No. 88 had set the pace. Honeycutt's advantage was not enormous, but he kept it intact through a long uninterrupted run. There was no late caution to compress the field or offer the chasing trucks another restart.

Jake Garcia completed the top five after starting 23rd. William Sawalich, Daniel Hemric, Gio Ruggiero, Grant Enfinger and Brent Crews followed, all on the lead lap. Chandler Smith finished 15th after a pit-road penalty, while Ben Rhodes ended up 21st following a tire problem near the end of Stage 2. All 36 starters were classified as running at the finish. Honeycutt left with the trophy, but the evening also showed how much a single pit sequence could change the fortunes of otherwise competitive trucks.

Honeycutt Made the Final Run Count

The last stint separated winning speed from earlier promise. Honeycutt led 53 laps, just four more than Majeski and ten more than Riggs, but his entire total came at the end. The official leader sequence credits him from Lap 98 through Lap 150. Those laps were enough to reverse the disappointment of Charlotte, where Riggs had beaten him a week earlier. At Phoenix, the order changed before the final green-flag run, not in its closing moments.

Eckes stayed close enough to make the margin meaningful without producing a winning pass. His second-place finish was his third consecutive runner-up result, according to Motorsport.com. Honeycutt credited the people preparing and servicing the truck, saying, "My pit crew did a great job, man." That acknowledgment fit a race in which getting out of the final pit sequence in position to attack proved essential.

Two Stage Wins Were Not a Guarantee

Majeski's first- and second-stage victories were substantial achievements, even though they did not produce the final trophy. Riggs finished second and fourth in those segments, while Honeycutt improved from fourth to second. The stage order therefore tells a more balanced story than a simple winner-versus-losers account: several championship contenders accumulated strong intermediate finishes before Honeycutt controlled the last portion.

Garcia combined a fifth-place result with points-scoring finishes in both stages. His gain of 18 positions from the grid was the largest among the top five. Eckes advanced from 13th to second; Hemric moved from 18th to seventh. These comparisons describe where they started and finished, rather than a count of on-track passes. They also show that the front of the finishing order was not reserved for the drivers who qualified on the first few rows.

Trouble Did Not Need a Major Accident

NASCAR's report identified Smith's penalty as too many crew members over the wall after Stage 2. The No. 38 had finished fifth and seventh in the stages but could recover only to 15th. Rhodes' tire failure left debris on the racing surface and brought out the second caution near the stage's conclusion. He finished one lap down, despite having been seventh in Stage 1.

Officially, there were only two cautions, covering 16 laps. That left few opportunities to erase a lost lap or reset an unfavorable track position. Friesen's brief spell in the lead illustrates the distinction between gaining position for a restart and retaining it over a run: he led three laps but finished 19th, the last truck on the lead lap. Phoenix did not require a large accident to produce sharply different outcomes for drivers who had run near the front.

Honeycutt led FantasyJolt base scoring with 67.3 points at a $14 salary. Majeski's two stage wins helped him reach 63.9 at $13, ahead of Riggs' 60.3 at $14. Eckes scored 54.2 at $13. The scoring order was therefore not identical to the finishing order: stage performance and laps led substantially changed the comparison among the leading trucks.

Garcia provided 45 points for $9, while Andres Perez De Lara finished 12th and scored 29 for $7. Those prices mattered when fitting five drivers under the $50 cap. Honeycutt also earned the single fastest-lap bonus, recording 27.672 seconds on Lap 100. That is one FantasyJolt bonus point, not a count of every lap on which he was the fastest driver.

The combination below is the highest-scoring legal hindsight lineup using the actual salaries and A-through-E multipliers. It is not a pre-race recommendation or a saved entry. Starting-position gains are useful race context, but they do not add place-differential points to this FantasyJolt calculation.

Perfect Lineup

The Truck Series moves to Talladega next Friday, October 23, with NASCAR listing a 4 p.m. Eastern start. Honeycutt takes a larger championship lead into that race, while Riggs remains his nearest challenger. Phoenix strengthened the No. 11 team's position; it did not settle the championship.

• 150 laps completed on Phoenix's one-mile oval.
• 1.556 seconds separated Honeycutt and Eckes.
• Five leaders and six lead changes.
• Two cautions for 16 laps.
• 19 trucks finished on the lead lap.