By Jerry Jordan, Editor
HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Two NASCAR champions will be crowned at Homestead-Miami Speedway before the Cup Series finale runs on Sunday.
For the first time since 2019, NASCAR is back in South Florida and will crown a champion in all three of its top touring divisions. Kaden Honeycutt will defend a 20-point lead over Layne Riggs in the Craftsman Truck Series on Friday night and Justin Allgaier is hoping to hold onto his 22-point lead in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series (NOAPS) race on Saturday.
“Our job is pretty simple: Go out and win tomorrow,” Honeycutt said.
Riggs, the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford driver, needs a big night. Seven wins made him the No. 1 seed but a loose wheel at Bristol and getting into the wall at Kansas while battling Honeycutt for the win left him behind the eight ball.
Riggs pointed to the format itself when he explained the hole.
“It definitely rewards consistency, which I feel like we haven’t had the best of, which is why we’re not in the points lead,” Riggs said. “I mean, I think I’m really good on offense at all times. I think when I’ve got a carrot in front of me, I know what the goal is and the task is. I can go out there when the pressure is on and perform really well.”
The two have raced each other for years and neither expects the friendship to harden Friday night.
“I think if we can win the championship the right way, I think that would progress us to move up to the next level a lot easier than wrecking each other to win this deal,” Honeycutt said.
“Hard-nosed racers. Been racing against each other a long time,” Riggs said.
Corey Heim Cannot Win the Title but He Can Help Decide It
Corey Heim won this championship last year and he is in Friday’s field in TRICON Garage’s No. 1 Toyota but Heim is not eligible for the drivers title after running a limited schedule this season. TRICON built the No. 1 as a rotating entry to chase the owners championship and Heim is Honeycutt’s teammate, which puts the fastest truck in the series in the middle of a two-man title fight it cannot win.
In March 2025, Heim started on the pole at Homestead-Miami Speedway, won both stages and led a race-high 78 laps before a late power problem dropped him to third behind Riggs and race winner Kyle Larson. Honeycutt pointed to the loophole that allows the arrangement but every point Heim takes at the front on Friday comes out of somebody’s championship. That said, there is a lot on the line with the manufacturer’s championship and that is Heim’s endgame.
Ford leads Toyota by 52 points in the manufacturers standings and can close out its first Truck Series manufacturers title since 2000 on Friday night.
Honeycutt carries one more reason into the finale. He grew up in Southeast Texas, where racing isn’t plentiful, especially on asphalt. He worked his way around the state, doing battle at small town dirt tracks, some at the end of dirt roads close to the middle of nowhere.
“I want to win this for my state of Texas,” Honeycutt told Kickin’ the Tires, which is based just a few miles from where Honeycutt once lived.
Justin Allgaier Has The Lead And None Of The Tiebreakers
Saturday’s NOAPS finale is wider open. Allgaier, the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet driver and the No. 1 seed, leads Jesse Love by 22 points, Corey Day by 23, Carson Kvapil by 31 and Sheldon Creed by 42. He locks up his second championship with 54 points no matter what the other four do. His issues sits in the tiebreaker column: Allgaier loses a tie to every other driver competing for the championship because each of the four has won a race in the Chase and he has not.
Love, the defending champion in the No. 2 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, entered Martinsville with a 19-point lead and left with nothing after a crash and a 30th-place finish. Day, in the No. 17 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, trimmed 85 points off his deficit with back-to-back wins at Las Vegas and Charlotte.
Both Love and Day control their own destiny but each needs a perfect 76-point day, winning both stages, the the race and having the fastest lap.
Kvapil and Creed can only take the title with help, though Creed, the No. 00 Haas Factory Team driver and the longest shot of the five, also wins his tiebreakers with a victory.
Kvapil, the No. 1 JR Motorsports driver, arrives with the momentum after winning at Martinsville this past Saturday and his team is not pretending the math is anything but steep.
“We’ve just got to go have a perfect day,” Kvapil said. “We’ve got to qualify good. We’ve got to execute everything, from lap 1 of practice to the end of the race on the white flag.”
Carson Kvapil said his father Travis Kvapil did not offer much advice beyond telling him to “just go rip it and not hold back and try to be 100 percent from start to finish.” Asked to rate his confidence, Kvapil said, “I’m going to go 9. We’re on the uphill climb right now, and we just need one more big chunk of points to be champions.”
The Truck Series finale runs Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET on FS1. The NOAPS finale follows Saturday at 5 p.m. ET on The CW and the Cup Series championship closes the weekend Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on NBC.