Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series
Bristol Media Availability
Friday, April 11, 2025
Layne Riggs, driver of the No. 38 Love’s Travel Stops Ford F-150, won the last time the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series ran at Bristol Motor Speedway. He stopped by the infield media center this afternoon to talk about going for consecutive victories and what lies ahead in tonight’s scheduled race.
LAYNE RIGGS, No. 38 Love’s Travel Stops Ford F-150 – YOU DID THE LATE MODEL TEST AT ROCKINGHAM. WHAT DID YOU DISCOVER ABOUT THE TRACK? “When I ran the late model there it was pretty fast even with the old asphalt. That was back in 2021. I remember holding it wide-open in the late model stock around Rockingham. That was pretty sketchy. With the old asphalt, the best tire they could make only held up 10 laps without wearing out, so it was time for the repave, for sure. I think they did a good job with it during the test. I thought it was cool they still had some character in it They still had some bumps and dips, so it still had some of the characteristics that the old track did. I’d say in 10 years time it’ll be just like it used to be, so I’m looking forward to that. I’m looking forward to going there. It’s close to home. Dad raced there. There’s a lot of history at that racetrack. I hate that it was even off the schedule in the first place, so I’m glad we’re going back.”
WHAT WILL BE THE KEY TO CONSISTENCY THERE AT ROCKINGHAM? “At Rockingham, I think it’s gonna be a typical repave. I think it’s gonna be the same kind of way that you ran North Wilkesboro – everybody runs the bottom all day long, all practice, all qualifying. One person is gonna find speed on the top and then everybody is gonna migrate to the top and just kind of build a cushion and everybody is gonna run the top. I mean, every place finally has to be repaved. We don’t really like to see it. Drivers like to see characteristics in a track and tire wear, but sometimes it just gets a little too egregious, so it’s gonna struggle a little bit to start, but that’s any repave on a racetrack. I think it will be a little one-grooved, either one-grooved on the bottom or one-grooved on the top and hoping we qualify good and stay in front of everybody. That’s the plan.”
WHAT ARE THE EMOTIONS COMING BACK AS THE LAST DRIVER TO WIN A RACE HERE? IS THERE A LITTLE MORE SWAGGER COMING BACK AS A WINNER “Yeah, I think so. A lot of people are like, ‘Make sure you don’t try harder. You don’t have to win again. Just because you won here doesn’t mean you have to win again.’ I fully believe in that. Every race is its own chance and opportunity. Coming back, we brought the same exact chassis, truck, setup and everything as we did last year. It’s looking like we’re not gonna get any practice or qualifying, so I think it’s gonna be in our favor in that aspect, so I’m looking forward to it. I love this place. I’ve had good success here. I even ran a late model race here when they had the short track nationals here years ago. It’s definitely a place that has an aura when you walk into it.”
LARSON IS BACK IN THE FIELD, JUST LIKE HOMESTEAD. DID YOU LEARN ANYTHING BATTLING HIM IN THAT RACE? “Luckily, nobody really runs the fence here, so I think I’ll be OK in that aspect. He did teach me a lot at Homestead, just running behind him and being able to just scrape the wall with his right-rear on the track. I went back and listened to his radio, the adjustments that he needed to make, that he called out, running the fence, stuff like that. My notebook was pretty long after that race and just to even be in contention to race up there for the win and to have a shot to win the thing at the end, I was really happy with our performance. That was a brand new truck from the Front Row Motorsports stable – chassis, body, finish, fab, everything was done in-house. They pretty much took that on over the offseason moving race shops, so I’m really proud of our team. In the short amount of time we’ve grown a lot doing everything in-house. When you go to a mile and a half track like that and you can just have raw race speed at a place that I don’t even have that much experience at, it just shows how good of a piece we’re bringing to the racetrack.”
WHAT GOES INTO BEING ABLE TO WORK THROUGH THE FIELD ON A GREEN TRACK WHEN YOU HAVE NO LAPS ON THE TRACK PRIOR TO THE RACE STARTING? “I’ve actually never started a race and not had a single lap on the track. Obviously, we’ve had the superspeedways where you get one lap of qualifying, but that’s a little different. It’s gonna be new. My first lap barreling into the corner has never been side-by-side with somebody, so I just think it’s gonna be a little tip-toe for everybody, but running plenty of laps in the sim. Bristol being a clean place, I mean, you go to some places and when the track is clean it’s really slick or with no rubber on it, it’s kind of dusty. Here, it’s gonna have pretty good grip no matter what, so I feel confident in that. I know they laid some PJ1 down on the bottom. Hopefully, it washed every single bit of that away. I’m not a fan of it. I thought the race here in the fall last year, not just because I won, but I thought it was a great race. I could run the very bottom. I could run the top and had really good speed in both lines, so I like the maneuverability that’s here. I feel like that takes away a little bit of it, so hopefully it’s gone. I’m not gonna be starting on the pole or the front row, so hopefully I can just move up higher and pass people on the top early in the race. That’s the plan.”
HOW HAVE YOU AND CHANDLER SMITH WORKED TOGETHER THIS YEAR? “I think at the short track races you really can’t work together that much. You go to the speedways and obviously you can. Mile and a halves, we’ll try to help each other on restarts when we’re all packed up together when you need a little bit of help with some push, so I feel like we’ve been really connected with each other and helping each other on the racetrack in that aspect. Just having two notebooks every week to look at, post racing with two notebooks, two drivers, two crew chiefs. We’re getting double the information we used to get and it’s really helpful with what we’ve got. We both have our own ideas. We can try different things to see which we thought did better, and you look at the other teams that have four and five trucks, they’re getting four and five times more of the information we used to get. So even to be a single truck team to run as well as we did, I was amazed at how we could do that and now just having double the information for us is helping a lot. Chandler being a good driver, he’s been great for me and helped me at some of the places pre-race that I didn’t really have experience at before, so it’s all been good so far. I’m looking forward to the rest of the season and building more with him.”
DO YOU NORMALLY GO BACK AND LISTEN TO RADIO TRANSMISSIONS? WHAT WERE YOU HOPING TO LEARN? “You’d run out of time if you listened to everybody’s stuff, but if it’s certain situations – I remember they made a pretty big adjustment after the first stop and I was like, ‘What was he calling out?’ And he went on the radio and said, ‘When I run against the fence, I’m this many numbers freer. I’ve got to be tighter if I’m gonna run the fence.’ Well, I didn’t ever get up there early in the race, so I never really knew what I needed. Just him having the experience and being able to do it quick and call out what he needed – stuff like that – just getting an understanding of what his mindset was. Anytime that something stands out, I always put a star on it and try to go figure out why somebody did the thing they did and that’s any aspect on the racetrack. We’ve got a lot of tools that we can pretty much spy on anybody at any point during the race. I kind of wish it was more private for sure. You see the Cup guys have code words and stuff like that, but if the resource is there, I’m gonna try to use it all I can.”
WHAT DOES ROCKINGHAM MEAN TO YOU? “I think going to do the late model test, like I talked about. Obviously, going there with dad. I think it’s an hour and 30 minutes from my home, so it’s a home track for a lot of people. We don’t have a lot of tracks in North Carolina anymore, so it’s pretty cool we’re adding another one back. Everybody has seen the great races there that they’ve had. I hate that the track got taken off the schedule in the first place, but glad that everybody collectively made the right decision to bring it back. I think it’s good for everybody. Hopefully, we see the revival like Wilkesboro. We see how big the grandstands were, how packed they were and now it’s almost starting to fizzle a little bit. I hope that the people that were really pushing to have it back do come in person, show up, support. You can’t talk on social media and say you need to bring it back and then when it does come back, don’t support it. So, hopefully it’s supported for a long time and not just for a one race or two race hype that it’s back.”
HOW HAS THE SIM HELPED YOU THIS WEEK FOR BRISTOL? “I think the sim is a tool we use everywhere. The sim is only as good as we can make it. Obviously, Ford Performance gives us a good baseline, good tools to use, but your tire error model, your setup model is all based off of what our team puts together. At Ford, they give us a great tool to use, but we’ve got to make sure the tools are all how we want them to be, so every race we go in, we post race it. We put in the race model we ran, put in our error map and then we adjust the tires to kind of feel what I feel in real life, and it depends how good I hit it in the postrace scaling is how good it is the next time. Usually, the tracks we run well at I’m able to get it better and then the tracks we kind of struggle at, which is kind of the snowball effect. The tracks you’re not as good at, you can’t really get it as close, so it’s hard to get that edge and get better at those places. I feel like the places you’re good, you get only better. The places you struggle at, it’s hard to get any better than you were the time before, so it’s a game and a gamble of how good you can get it on there, but it’s definitely a good tool to use.”
THE CARS TOUR ANNOUNCED THEY’RE DOING A THROWBACK RACE AT HICKORY IN AUGUST. HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL TO SEE HOW THAT TOUR IS GROWING? “I haven’t really locked down any races. I plan on running three or four. Hopefully, my home track Orange County. I know we’re off that weekend. I’m trying to put a deal together to run there here in a couple weeks. I just heard about Hickory today. I haven’t really ran that great at Hickory, but I always enjoy that racetrack. We’ll probably be making an appearance there for sure now to go for the big money. They announced the Wilkesboro race is gonna be Friday night before our truck race. It’s gonna be on Fox. That’s huge for the late model stock community. With the new ownership with the CARS Tour, Dale and everybody having that pull and push and the popularity to get behind it, it’s been good. It is making it tougher though for somebody like myself that had our own race team, it’s just getting really expensive. It’s almost growing a little too big. It’s great to have the eyes on it, but anything that grows is naturally gonna get tougher and more expensive because people are gonna be putting more into it to win, so it’s not quite a backyard short track series anymore like it used to be when I ran it. It’s definitely grown into a level of its own. There are pros and cons to all of it. If you win one, it means a lot more, but it’s a whole lot tougher and more expensive to do it now. There’s always that fine balance, but I’m excited to run some more this year on our off weekends and when we have a little free time, dabble in it when we can. Like I said, I’m not really locked down exactly on which ones I’m gonna run yet, but it’s great for the community for sure.”
