Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series
Faithfest 250 Media Availability — North Wilkesboro Speedway
Friday, July 17, 2026
Layne Riggs, driver of the No. 34 Infinity Communications Group Ford F-150 for Front Row Motorsports, has four wins this season and is leading the series point standings. He came into the infield media center at North Wilkesboro Speedway this afternoon to talk about Saturday’s race.
LAYNE RIGGS, No. 34 Infinity Communications Group Ford F-150 – WHAT DOES THIS TRACK MEAN TO YOU? “My favorite part is that seven years ago we weren’t thinking this was ever gonna be possible and now every year when you see the schedule and you see North Wilkesboro on it, nobody flinches at it. That’s a great feeling to know that this is now again a staple on the schedule for all of NASCAR and hopefully it’s that way to stay forever.”
WHAT HAS IT BEEN LIKE FOR YOU AND THE TEAM WITH HOW CLOSE THE CHAMPIONSHIP BATTLE IS AND TRYING TO STAY AHEAD OF THE 11? “We’re just fine-tuning what we’ve been doing the past two-and-a-half years now. I feel like I’m more confident as a race car driver. I don’t have to take big risks anymore to get wins. I feel like I can kind of just sit back and let our natural speed take over and let the races come to us a little bit more. My crew chief, Dylan (Cappello), my engineer, we know what we’re gonna say before we even say it. That time together and experience definitely helps and going back to all these racetracks for a second and third time really helps us out too, just to know exactly what we fought the time before and what we did to fix it. No matter what, when you go to new teams and have new crew chiefs and engineers it takes a little bit of time to figure out what that feel is, what the vocabulary is, and I think that just me being comfortable and knowing what I need to go fast and being able to translate that to them – my crew chief also being a driver, he’s racing tonight in the CARS Tour Pro Late Model race. It’s always great to have somebody that has boots on the ground and experience for themselves. I’m really happy with where our group is right now. We had a bad end to the weekend at Lime Rock getting in that wreck and having an alternator issue. It took us out of contention for the win, but I feel like we’ve been in contention for the past couple of months almost every race and it’s a great feeling to show up at the racetrack with your hauler first and knowing that you’re the one with the target on your back, that everybody knows they have to beat every weekend.”
DO YOU KEEP LAST YEAR IN THE BACK OF YOUR MIND WITH AS CLOSE AS YOU WERE TO WINNING? “I look at 2024, we finished third. That was kind of our first good run as a team, a good, solid finish. We finished second last year. Third, second, hopefully the trend keeps going and we’re first this weekend.”
HAVING A CREW CHIEF THAT ALSO RACES AS A DRIVER, HOW HAS THAT BEEN DIFFERENT FROM HAVING ONE THAT DOES NOT? “It’s just a lot easier to relate to. A lot of the other legendary crew chiefs that never really drove, they just make decisions, make adjustments based off of, ‘well, in the past, my driver said this.’ If I say I’m loose in when it lands in the corner, my crew chief knows exactly what that means. He knows what that feels like here at North Wilkesboro. Boots on the ground has that experience himself, knows exactly what I’m wanting. I tell him a lot, this kind of sounds mean, but I said, ‘Sometimes when you race late models, I hope your car handles terrible so you know how important it is to have good equipment.’ We always joke and laugh about that, but he’s a great sport. It’s good to see him. He obviously has the passion to be a race car driver as well and he could probably be just as successful as a lot of these other guys and just didn’t have the right opportunities. I love when we have off weekends in the Truck Series and he can go have fun, enjoy himself and feel like he can kind of be free and just think a little bit deeper about things. It’s always great. When you look at the great driver/crew chief duos back in the day I think about my dad and Rodney Childers, and a lot of crew chiefs in the field drove at one point – not actively, but have and usually it always works out a little bit better.”
IS ALSO MORE ADVANTAGEOUS TODAY TO HAVE A CREW CHIEF WHO ALSO DRIVES? “I would say that it’s always been advantageous, but I don’t think it’s more today. I think there was equal opportunity in the past. In the nineties, you’d see a lot of those guys do that as well. I think that trend is just continuing throughout. I don’t think it’s getting more or less prevalent. It’s always nice when you have a situation where it is easy. I think about my engineer. He didn’t really grow up working on race cars. He hasn’t been around it, but he’s super great at what he does, but he would never be a guy that would race himself. It’s all what your background is and what you grew up doing. I feel you can be successful in a lot of different areas, but, for me, it’s always easier to relate to somebody that does have the experience himself. But I think it’s great. You see just from the stat sheet how successful it is when you have those duos, and I think it’s advantageous for people in the future to try and do that.”
WILL YOU BE HELPING YOUR CREW CHIEF OUT TONIGHT WHEN HE’S RACING? “Last year, I was actually here during the practice day. I was sweating my tail off all day long and he blew an engine in practice. That didn’t work out. I was changing bumps. I burnt my arm on his header. I was working. Trust me, I was working. I didn’t come yesterday. I’m saving my sweat for today and tomorrow, but I’ll be down in the pits hanging out with his guys. We have to focus on our truck stuff first, but then right after qualifying today I’m gonna head over to the late model garage. My fiance and brother-in-law – Matt Piercy Racing. He has two cars, Jesse Love and Parker Eatmon Racing as well, so a lot of ties in with the late model community. I haven’t run any races this year. I don’t really have any planned either. I just want to focus on my craft right now, but I’l always have those grassroots ties and always love when we race on the same weekends or nearby each other and I can stop by and say hello.”
WILL YOU BE ON THE RADIO TONIGHT OFFERING FEEDBACK? “No. I don’t want to step on his crew chief’s toes. I will be there. I might give him an attaboy under a caution or tell him to go faster, but I gave him a little motivation. He practiced yesterday morning, drove back to Mooresville to work on our truck for IRP for four hours, and then came back here last night to qualify. He is on the go 24/7. All props to him. I’m gonna give him an attaboy, but I’m not gonna step on their toes and their program and what they’ve done. It’s always just fun to kind of hang out and be standing in the pit box.”
LANDON LEWIS WAS SECOND LAST WEEK AND SAID HE WANTED TO BE CLEAN AND NOT ROUGH UP GRANT ENFINGER JUST TO WIN. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUNG DRIVERS WHO DO THINGS LIKE THAT? “I think just every new driver that comes in, especially the ones that have come from the CARS Tour, I’ve seen how they race. I kind of know what their driver personality is like anyways, and then when you race side-by-side with them on the racetrack you also get to see that first hand. It’s just kind of a question mark. You have to learn their first impression and then put it in your memory bank. It’s just learning new people in the field. There are a lot of new people in the field today. It’s gonna be a stacked truck field, one of the most stacked we’ve had in a while. Every driver has a memory. They know how to race each person, and I think we all have our lists and we have to stay on top of them.”
SO MANY CUP GUYS ARE CROSSING OVER FOR THIS RACE. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT? “Hopefully, they’re all behind us and hopefully we can win and say that’s how many guys we beat, but it’s always great to have Cup guys in the field. For one, the experience. When they do run well, you get to see their race craft and it always helps us truck regulars that race up front to have some more competition, and at the same time I feel like a lot more people tune into our races as well in the Truck Series. If they know there are so many Cup guys, they want to see how they stack up against these guys. It’s kind of a benchmark to, ‘OK, are these Truck guys the real deal or not?’ If they can race with the Cup guys, they can even outrun them, they are the real deal. But if the Cup guys come in and they all finish up top, they’re not as good. So, it’s always good because people are curious about that. They want to see it. They tune in and hopefully we can finish in front of them and prove it to everybody.”
WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED ABOUT THIS TRACK THAT WILL HELP TOMORROW? “It’s surprisingly a lot more multi-groove than I thought it was gonna be. I know one and two, the way it’s shaped, has always been a multi-groove corner. I thought that with the new asphalt three and four would really be just painting the white line around the bottom, but it’s so surprising how it moves up so quickly and moves around a lot and you have options. I really enjoy that aspect. It’s rare that you have options on newer pavement tracks, and it just shows the character of this place, how it is built with the downhill frontstretch and uphill backstretch. It’s a very unique racetrack and it shows how well it was built to put on good racing. Even when you put non-racy new asphalt on it, it races just as good or better than it did before. It’s great. I love coming here, and I love that it has so much growth and I feel like the fans are very supportive. Everybody said, ‘If North Wilkesboro comes back, we’ll support it.’ And I’m thinking, ‘Yeah, for a year or two and then you’ll forget about it.’ But I’m glad that every time we come back here they keep supporting it like they said they were going to and we can keep this going year after year.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN WHEN RACING IN THE CARS TOUR SERIES AND HOW DID IT HELP YOU GET TO THIS POINT? IS IT A GOOD PIPELINE? “I think right now it’s probably more competitive even than ARCA at the moment. To win a CARS Tour race is more prestigious than winning an ARCA race and a lot more eyes are on it as well. I think that running in the CARS Tour, being a threat for a championship there is an easy pipeline straight to the Truck Series like I did myself. That’s where I learned how to race. That’s where my race craft came from, racing against Deac McCaskill, Lee Pulliam. Me and Josh Berry were rivals for a long time in late model racing and you see a lot of us either ended up making it to the top series or became legends. I think right now we’re seeing the guys that are running up front, or looking back you could see how either legendary their career was or how they were able to move on. It’s hard to win one of those races. You look at the qualifying times most weekends – I ran at Caraway two years ago and qualified two-tenths off the pole and was last. That is tough. My confidence was in the dirt, so it’s very, very tough to race. The cars are very equal. To win one of those races, it shows that you’re a pretty good race car driver. You’re not a fluke for sure, and I think it’s a great pipeline to what they have. The management and everybody that owns it is doing a great job taking it to new racetracks, and I could see it being on TV here before long and I hope it can be to get the recognition that it deserves.”
YOU HAVE FOUR WINS SO FAR, DO YOU FEEL THIS IS SOMETHING YOU AND THE TEAM WERE CAPABLE OF AT THE START OF THE YEAR? “Of course. I felt like last year me and the 11 were in really close and obviously they were the class of the field most weekends, but we still had a shot at it coming down to the end. If we would have made the Championship 4, we were leading with three laps to go in the Phoenix race. I mean, we were championship contenders without being an actual contender, and we knew that we had the ability to do that as a team and this year was just time to execute. My goal is to first, win the regular season title. Hopefully, we can still do that. We still have a decent points lead after a disappointing race last weekend, and just have to keep that trend going for us. We knew that with time we were gonna be able to be a force to be reckoned with and it’s great to be able to show that and execute these races and have really strong performances recently, so I’m just excited for the tracks coming up. They’re kind of my bread and butter and we have a lot of hope for our future.”
THERE IS A THREE WEEK BREAK AFTER NEW HAMPSHIRE BEFORE THE CHASE STARTS. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT? IS IT GOOD OR DOES IT STOP MOMENTUM? “I think it’s good for Truck Series teams to have a break. We don’t have quite the personnel and employee count that O’Reilly and Cup teams have, so our road crew guys that are here today, they’re the same ones that assemble the trucks during the week. We only have one or two shop guys that stay in the shop to assemble trucks, so it’s nice for us to kind of regroup, get back together. I feel like momentum isn’t really a time thing, it’s more of a race to race thing, so I like having those breaks. I wish it was a little more evenly spread out. I feel like we’ll run eight in a row and then we’ll have a month off. I wish it was two and then a week off, two and then a week off. I know it doesn’t really work out that way with the tracks we go to, the scheduling versus the other two series and how all that works logistically, but it is nice to have some breaks for our guys to really put our heads together, make sure that all of our t’s are crossed and i’s are dotted when we show up at the racetrack.”
