Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series
Black’s Tire 200 — Martinsville Speedway
Friday, October 30, 2026
CHANDLER SMITH LEADS 1-2-3-4 FORD SWEEP AT MARTINSVILLE
- Chandler Smith led a Ford sweep of the top four positions as he won tonight’s race at Martinsville Speedway. Ben Rhodes was second, Layne Riggs third and Ty Majeski fourth.
- The win in Smith’s third of the season and 10th of his career.
- Ford has 11 wins this season which is one away from matching its all-time best.
- Ford’s other NCTS wins this year have been by Layne Riggs (7) and Jake Garcia (1).
- Overall, Ford has won 140 series races.
Ford Finishing Results
1st – Chandler Smith
2nd – Ben Rhodes
3rd – Layne Riggs
4th – Ty Majeski
13th – Jake Garcia
22nd – Cole Butcher
25th – Frankie Muniz
26th – Josh Reaume
35th – Monty Tipton
CHANDLER SMITH, No. 38 QuickTie/Cole Swindell Ford F-150 – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW – “God is good. The faith has been tested, especially since the start of the Chase and it’s been literally every single week something, but our faith never wavered though. I’m just very grateful and I’m very humbled for tonight. I just know that that’s from the Lord. Everybody on this No. 38 QuickTie Products Ford F-150, we had a solid truck tonight, especially when it counted. We’ve got one more race left and we’ll try to end that with a band with these Front Row Motorsports fellas.” WHEN THE LAST CAUTION CAME OUT, WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS? “I just wanted to execute, be clean, make sure I don’t screw the 34 up – just race clean and try to get the win. The Lord delivered it and I’m just grateful. I’m humbled to be the vessel tonight.” WHAT ABOUT NEXT WEEK AT HOMESTEAD AND ENDING THE SEASON STRONG? “Hopefully, we can get one more win sticker at Homestead to top it off.”
LAYNE RIGGS, No. 34 BKB Bare Knuckle Boxing Ford F-150 – CAN YOU TALK ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED ON THE FINAL RESTART WITH CHANDLER GETTING OUT FRONT? “I felt better on the top on restarts all night long, taking the lead back from the 77. I just felt like I was just too loose to fire off on restarts. When you have a good balance on the long run, you have to be too free on the initial runs, so I wanted to take the top. My team kind of differed against that. They didn’t want me to take the top because then you put the control of your race in the guy’s hands on the inside of you. He can use you up. Who knows if he would have played nice or not. Congrats to Chandler on the win. It’s been a little while for those guys, but those bonus points really would have been nice, and even more than that I wanted a grandfather clock really, really bad. We led so many laps. I’m just disappointed. It’s always a shoulda, woulda, coulda, but we had a really fast truck. Thank you to Bare Knuckle Boxing, Ford Racing, everybody at Front Row Motorsports. They gave me a really fast truck. You couldn’t ask for much more. I just wish that we were a little bit more prone to being better on short runs. We worked on our long run. Obviously, every time I’d get out front I’d just have a massive lead. I wish I had a little more air in my tires there those last few restarts.” YOU ARE 20 POINTS OUT GOING TO HOMESTEAD. HOW DO YOU FEEL? “All positivity we’re gonna go win it. With this format having 20 bonus points, it’s pretty much a winner take all again, in my opinion. Instead of having four, it’s two this time, so we’re gonna go win. That’s all I can go do. Go win. At least go match him in stage points. We can’t have a bad qualifying effort or have something bad on pit road. We’ve just got to go there and execute. As you saw tonight, he’s not as dominant as some people think. He had a little issue that kind of helped us out as well, but it would have been nice to win for me. We would have been in the plus right now.”
BEN RHODES, No. 99 Bommarito Ford F-150 – “A lot of second places at Martinsville, but, honestly, I’ll take it. Martinsville is a tough racetrack and our ThorSport Racing crew always brings me a great Bommarito F-150. We started off practice good and qualifying went OK, but we just hovered around that fourth to fifth place spot all day long, just playing it easy. Thankfully, there at the end we got a good restart. I thought we had something maybe for Chandler, but as the laps were dragging on he was starting to inch away from me. I was doing all I could to stay with him and he was giving it all he had to stay away from us. If we were able to get to him any sooner, I was afraid that the pack would have got to us, so I was trying to play it careful, but it was too little, too late.” HOW REAL WERE YOUR BRAKE ISSUES? “The pedal was going to the floor. It was too hot, too much tape on the grille. We got that off on the one and only pit stop today, so I’m thankful that our pit crew did a good job and I was able to cool our brakes down.”
TY MAJESKI, No. 88 Serta/Menards Ford F-150 – “We were just a little bit off tonight. We were a fourth to sixth place truck depending on how the restart shook out. It was a solid run with our Menards Ford F-150, but just came up a little bit short tonight.” ANY BRAKE ISSUES? “A little bit here and there, but nothing out of the ordinary. The pedal gets a little bit soft under yellow. You just kind of had to pump it to get it back, but nothing out of the ordinary.” AFTER THE BREWERS WON THE WORLD SERIES AND PACKERS WON LAST NIGHT. WERE YOU TRYING TO MAKE IT THREE STRAIGHT FOR WISCONSIN? “That would have been nice, for sure. It’s a good time to be a Wisconsin sports fan. I wish we could have got it tonight. This race is on my bucket list, so hopefully one day.”
