Truck Owner's Championship Contender Hit With Pre-Race Penalties

If Layne Riggs and the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports team are going to win the 2025 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series owner's championship, they are going to have to put on their rally caps on Friday evening at Phoenix Raceway.

The team's No. 34 Ford F-150 was found to have an illegal panel added between the oil resevoir and floorboard of the truck. As a result of the illegal component discovered in the truck during pre-race inspection, NASCAR has handed out some hefty pre-race penalties to the championship-contending team.

Riggs, who will be required to turn a qualifying lap on Friday, will have to drop to the rear of the field, and make a pass-through penalty after the initial start of the race. Additionally, Dylan Cappello, the crew chief for the team, has been ejected for the remainder of the race weekend.

Seth Barbour is expected to take over crew chief duties on Friday night.

With Phoenix Raceway being just a mile in length, Riggs will either lose a lap, or be extremely close to losing a lap after serving his pass-through penalty on the opening lap of the race. That being said, it'll be an extreme uphill battle for Riggs, who showcased a fast truck in Thursday's NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series practice session.

This is the second pre-race inspection issue experienced by the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series team in the last few weeks. The team was also busted for an infraction at Talladega Superspeedway, which put Riggs at the rear of the field to start that event.

Riggs, a three-time race winner this season, would see his driver's championship hopes come to an end in a points tiebreaker at the conclusion of the Round of 8, a miserable round, where the driver suffered issues that impacted his point total in each race.

At the Charlotte Roval, he finished 21st after a first-lap incident with Grant Enfinger, which broke his rear swaybar, and eventually led to a broken axle on the final lap of the race. At Talladega, he would start from the rear, would make his way toward the front, but would get spun twice before he made a late-race rally to finish fifth.

At Martinsville Speedway, Riggs was the class of the field as he started from the pole and led the opening 27 laps of the race, but a transmission issue on a Lap 28 restart snatched the lead from Riggs' grasp, and he would never regain it as he finished third in the race.