Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series
FaithFest 250 — North Wilkesboro Speeday
Saturday, July 18, 2026
SMITH POSTS REPEAT VICTORY WITH F-150 AT NORTH WILKESBORO SPEEDWAY
- Chandler Smith won at North Wilkesboro for the second straight year this afternoon.
- It’s also the second straight year Smith and Riggs finished first and second.
- Ford has now won six races this season and four of the last six overall.
- The win is Smith’s second of the season after he captured the season-opener in Daytona.
- That also marks his fourth win in two seasons driving for Front Row Motorsports.
- The win is FRM’s 21st all-time and sixth in 2026, which is the most for the organization in one season.
- Layne Riggs has four wins to go with Smith’s two.
- Overall, Ford has won 135 series races.
CHANDLER SMITH, No. 38 QuickTie Ford F-150 – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW – WHAT WENT THROUGH YOUR MIND WHEN THAT TRUCK SPUN WITH TWO LAPS TO GO? “I was just like, ‘Come on boys. Just keep it straight. It ain’t that deep. I’m already right here.’ All glory goes to God. We’ve been in the valley the past few weeks and I was telling these guys, ‘God is good in the mountains, but he’s also good in the valleys.’ We’ve been in the valleys. Today we’re on the mountaintop. Either way, whether if we’re on the mountaintop or in the valley we’re gonna keep raising Him. I just want to give all glory to him. He’s the source of where all blessings and all the trials flow, so I’m just grateful.”
THE SHORT TRACK PROGRAM AT FRM IS REALLY GOOD. HOW MUCH PRESSURE DID YOU PUT ON YOURSELF TO TRY AND REPEAT? “We won last year and were really good and my truck wasn’t good. This year, our truck was good and it reflected that.” HOW HARD WAS IT TO FOCUS WITH THE HEAT? “I’m scorched to say the least.”
Ford Finishing Order:
1st – Chandler Smith
2nd – Layne Riggs
10th – Ty Majeski
13th – Jake Garcia
14th – Ben Rhodes
22nd – Cole Butcher
31st – Clayton Green
32nd – Frankie Muniz
33rd – Luke Baldwin
LAYNE RIGGS, No. 34 Infinity Communications Group Ford F-150 – “It was hot. Congratulations to the 38 team and Chandler. They’ve had some really tough races recently. I’m really proud of everybody at Front Row Motorsports and the organization. A one-two finish again this year. We did it the right way this time with no controversy on this one. That first stage I was fighting tight and we freed it up. It was freer, but it just didn’t make any speed so we really had to throw the wholesale at it to start the final stage. I was loose to start again and just kind of maintained. Once everyone else started falling off I was really good on the long run. We just didn’t have the fire off speed at the beginning of the run to hold my track position, but to come under green up to second I’m very happy and very proud of my team. We got Infinity Communications a good run. I wanted to get them a win, but I’m just happy for this whole organization. Those guys deserve it. They did a great job today.”
TY MAJESKI, No. 88 Great Lakes Flooring/Menards Ford F-150 – “I liked the call to stay out. I didn’t feel like we were gonna get stage points in that second stage, and I didn’t feel like we were probably gonna finish better than fifth if we didn’t flip it. So, I feel like it was a good call. I’m not positive on the points, so we’ll take it and move on to a strong racetrack of ours in IRP. HOW HOT WAS IT TODAY? “Lime Rock was probably worse last week. It was hot there, but you’re working a lot harder at Lime Rock than you are here. A hot day, but nothing too bad.”
CHANDLER SMITH WINNER’S PRESS CONFERENCE
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR MINDSET IN THOSE FINAL LAPS? “It was hot. Right off the get-go from the start of the race I knew we had a really good truck, just starting the race around guys and seeing where they were struggling and where my strong suit was. It looked very similar to last year, but last year we were really good speedwise, but I wasn’t very happy with my truck. This year, we were really good speedwise, but also I had a really good handling race truck, so great job by everybody on this No. 38 team coming back year two, getting the thing dialed back in and making it a little better than it was last year.”
ARE WE OVERLOOKING YOU FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP? “I don’t know. Are you all? I mean, that’s a question for you all. I personally feel like we’re a championship-caliber team. We went through a rut at truthfully Charlotte was induced by me. We went to Nashville and were extremely good, went to Michigan and was pretty good, finished top five or six there, whatever it was, and then had two back-to-back races at San Diego and then Lime Rock where we finished 30th, so points kind of don’t tell the full story, but truthfully this 38 team has been strong. The only race that I can even think back on this year that we haven’t been lights out was Dover and we weren’t lights out at Lime Rock, but we were still solid at Lime Rock. At Dover we weren’t good, but the 38 team has been firing on all eight cylinders. It’s just a matter of is it gonna be a good day or not. We’re just vessels trying to fulfill the Lord’s Will.”
HOW DO YOU FEEL YOU STACK UP AGAINST LAYNE AND THE 34 TEAM? “This is year two of our team being together. I think that’s year four of their team being together. I feel like realistically they should be ahead of us, but at the same time I felt like our growth and our progression from last year to this year is definitely reflected on our on-track results as well. We already have more top fives than we had last year. Our race trucks, our products are better than last year. Our pit crew has been doing a little bit better, so we’re trending in the right direction. A lot of times you look at some of those mini-highlights and talk about the 11 team. The 11 team has been around since Corey went to Tricon and look at how long it took for them to get as dominant as they were last year, so it takes time to build championship-caliber teams to where it is through in and out. Even on the hard days they can rebound and I feel like the 38 team is definitely trending in the direction of being a very predominant team where they look in the garage and go, ‘That’s an extremely stellar team.’ We’re really good, for sure. We’re third in points, but we still have room to grow, for sure.”
THIS IS THE LARGEST MARGIN OF VICTORY IN TRUCK SERIES SHORT TRACK HISTORY. WERE YOU SAVING ANYTHING IN ADVANCE IN THAT FINAL STAGE? “It’s funny. It was after eight laps when the start of stage three started. I just instantly started riding, but our truck was so good that it didn’t matter. I rode all the way to the very last lap and it was funny, they were reading my lap times off and I’m like, ‘Man, I’m sorry. I know you all probably think I’m just out here pushing it,’ but, truthfully, one thing that I have learned in short track racing growing up super late model racing, when you intentionally go to save tire, most of the time you actually hurt yourself more than you help yourself, so just driving underneath the tire, going as hard as you can but staying underneath it and not overslipping the right-front or the right-rear, that’s what I would call the most efficient way to save tire. That’s what I started doing from lap eight of the run all the way to the end and it’s crazy that we still ended up with that big of a margin of victory.”
HOW HARD WAS IT TO NOT LOSE FOCUS WHEN IT WAS SO HOT TODAY? “Truthfully, under green flag conditions, for me, you’re so focused and focused in on the task at hand that the heat is secondary, truthfully. Your mind, as you go through situations like this, you mentally block it out because you can’t focus on the heat. You’ve got to focus on the task at hand. A little slip up is a half-a-tenth to a tenth, so that’s a big deal especially in this garage. The part that sucks is when you’re under caution and you don’t have to focus and you’re just riding around. That’s when the heat soaks and you start noticing the little things like the fan ain’t blowing good air at all. The chill out shirt is starting to not be so chill anymore per se. That’s when it really sucks, so green flag runs are great and then once the caution comes out I’m like, ‘Uh, this sucks. I wish we could have just kept going.’”
IS THERE A SIMILAR SHORT TRACK FROM WHERE YOU GREW UP THAT TRANSLATES OVER TO THIS? “The short track principles apply here especially, and they reward you a lot here just being disciplined and what it takes to be good in a super late model at any short track in America when you’re facing your Bubba Pollards, your Chase Elliotts, all those guys I grew up racing in their prime – your Jeff Choquettes. You had to be flawless every weekend racing against those guys, so the principles on short track racing, it still applies even here and I think that’s just what it is.”
HOW BIG IS IT TO COME BACK HERE AND BE AS DOMINANT AS YOU WERE TODAY? “It’s just a testament to who good of a group of men and women I have around me at Front Row Motorsports. Like I said, our 38 team we’re progressively getting better and we’re seeing the fruit of that labor. Last year, we came here and won the race and we weren’t really that great, truthfully. I know on paper it looked like we were really good, but behind the wheel I was like, ‘Man, this thing ain’t really that great.’ Today, we were pretty good and the results on paper reflect that performance as well.”
THERE’S A THREE-WEEK BREAK AFTER NEW HAMPSHIRE. IS THAT A GOOD THING FOR YOU GUYS? “No. That’s the only thing I don’t like about Truck racing is these breaks and how inconsistent the schedule can become when you get started in the summer stretch a little later. I personally would be a huge 30-race Truck Series, let’s go do it guy because the Truck Series is a feeder series to O’Reilly and then Cup. The more experience Truck guys can get just prepares them more for when they make that next step, so I’m a big let’s go race more races.”
DOES IT HELP THE TEAM GET PREPARED? “It helps the team, but O’Reilly goes through the same thing. The teams will adapt. If there are more races added, the teams will adapt and it won’t be a problem because the teams will be forced to adapt. If you don’t, then you’re gonna get chewed up and spit out. I would love to see 30 races on the Truck schedule – 100 percent.”
YOU DID THE KYLE BUSCH BOW AFTER WINNING THE RACE. WHAT DID KYLE MEAN TO YOU? “Kyle meant a lot to me, truthfully. He meant a lot to me in a sense of he took the time out of his day when I had questions, not to rush me, he would sit me down and explain what I was asking and giving me the answer and being very thorough about it and not being short-winded. He cared really deeply about his drivers and the ones he believed in you could definitely tell because those are the ones that he really wanted to take time with. The ones that he kind of had run-ins with he was pretty vocal about it. Kyle was an amazing boss, a great mentor, and when even when I look at the Cup Series garage now I think of Christopher Bell, Bubba Wallace, William Byron – Kyle was the one that laid the foundation for them and their NASCAR career and helped those guys get to where they are now. Truthfully, Kyle is the one that kind of taught us all of the tricks that were up his sleeves and then, funny enough, we’d go out there and beat him with his own tricks. He would be like, ‘Man, I need to stop doing this. One of these days I’ll figure that out,’ but, truthfully, off the racetrack and away from the racetrack, Kyle was one of the most sweetest individuals that you would ever meet. He would take the shirt off his back for anybody else and that’s just who he was. We miss him deeply. The garage still isn’t the same and it never will be.”
WHAT WAS YOUR MINDSET WHEN YOU WERE TRAILING HOCEVAR AND RIGGS AND THEN HOCEVAR HAD HIS PROBLEMS AND YOU WERE ABLE TO GET THE LEAD? “The Lord works in mysterious ways, I suppose. Honestly, I felt like we had the truck capable of winning and we were the truck to beat. I was just kind of biding my time, being easy on my equipment, not burning up my tires. It’s a long race – 250 laps. You’re only in stage one so you’ve still got three-quarters of the race to go after stage one is done or whatever it may be, so I was just biding my time and waiting until stage two came around.”
HOW DID YOU AND KYLE BEING MEN OF FAITH PLAY INTO YOUR RELATIONSHIP? “It was big and honestly one of the most precious things for me, and I said this on live TV a few weeks ago and somebody, as always, people run their mouth, but it was truly a blessing to look back in the past year and reflect back to the time I met Kyle and how much his faith has grown and how much he really took that leadership role in his home even to the next level. I’m not saying he wasn’t right, wrong or indifferent when I met him, he was doing more. He was growing so much and it was such a blessing to see that, especially when you have individuals that you love and you care about, you want to see them succeed and do well, but not only in materialistic things, but you want to see them do well in their spiritual life as well and run the good race. The last few years, you definitely started seeing Kyle run a good race and that gave me some peace when I heard the news, for sure.”
