Richmond heats up under the lights for the NASCAR Trucks Series regular season finale – Speedway Digest

After 17 races featuring 10 different winners – including seven championship contenders it all comes down to Friday night’s eero 250 at Richmond Raceway (7:30 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) to formally set the 10-driver NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Playoff field.

Corey Heim and Layne Riggs have each won two of the last four races and come into Richmond riding solid momentum. Heim, the driver of the No. 11 TRICON Garage Toyota Tundra has turned in a season for the ages, winning a series best six races – triple that of any other fulltime competitor – and carries a 178-point advantage over Riggs in the standings, having already clinched the regular season championship weeks ago.

Riggs and his Front Row Motorsports teammate Chandler Smith are the only other multiple-race winners, each collecting a pair of trophies and challenging for that runner-up position to Heim in the standings.

Former NASCAR Xfinity Series champion Daniel Hemric, McAnally Hilgemann Racing’s Tyler Ankrum, Spire Motorsports’ Rajah Caruth and Halmar Friesen Racing’s owner-driver Stewart Friesen are the other drivers with wins this season, although Friesen will not be competing for the driver’s championship after sustaining major injuries in a Modified crash two weeks ago.

That leaves four positions to be decided by the points standings and currently veteran Grant Enfinger, former series champ Ty Majeski, Kaden Honeycutt and Jake Garcia are above the cutoff line. Two-time series champion Ben Rhodes is only 11 points back from Garcia and rookie Giovani Ruggiero is only 21 points behind.

Majeski is the defending race winner. Smith (2022) and Enfinger (2020) also have previous wins at the Richmond three-quarter miler. Smith has a pair of NASCAR Xfinity Series wins at Richmond too.

Practice followed by Kennametal Pole Qualifying is set for 2:05 p.m. ET on Friday – available on FS2. Christian Eckes, who now races fulltime in the NASCAR Xfinity Series is the defending pole-winner. The outside polesitter (Majeski and Smith) has won two of the last three races.