Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series
Navy 250 — Naval Base Coronado
Friday, June 19, 2026
FORD F-150 AND LAYNE RIGGS CONTINUE HOT STREAK; WIN INAUGURAL NAVY 250 ON NAVAL BASE CORONADO
- Layne Riggs won today’s Navy 250 on Naval Base Coronado, marking his ninth career victory.
- This is Ford Racing’s fifth win of the season and fourth for Riggs, who won at St. Petersburg, Charlotte and Nashville. Chandler Smith won the season-opener in Daytona.
- It’s also the third win in the last four races for Riggs, whose four wins this year is a career best.
- In addition, Riggs moved into second-place on Ford’s all-time NCTS wins list with nine and trails only the late Greg Biffle, who had 16 career series victories.
- Ford Racing has now won 134 all-time NCTS races while this is the 20th for Front Row Motorsports.
LAYNE RIGGS, No. 34 Mattermost Ford F-150 – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW: “Layne van Riggsbergen came to play today, man. I got my second street course win. We’re undefeated in street courses. Much respect, Shane. I wish I could be as good as you one day, but I’m gonna take all my glory here in the Truck Series. Thank you to everybody. I don’t even know what happened at the end. Sparks flying. People wrecking. Staying the throttle. I was running out of fuel the entire last lap. It was like St. Pete all over again. A great job with Reif there. I faked left to scare him and he missed the corner. I wasn’t really gonna dive it in there and it worked for me. I hate that Chandler got taken out there and the 11. They definitely had it won. They beat us on strategy. We just didn’t have the tires and when we stayed out because we could make it to the end on fuel the tires prevailed. What a crazy race today with the strategy and everything else. It’s an amazing, historic win. We’ve got Mattermost on the truck this weekend. Thank you to everybody at Ford Racing. Joey Hand, you’re the man. We’re 2-for-2 on street courses. This is awesome. What a historic event, so thank you to everybody that is involved. Hopefully, we put on a great race for all the fans that have never seen NASTRUCKS before.”
HOW SPECIAL IS THIS GROUP OF GUYS ON YOUR TEAM? “It’s great. We’ve worked so hard. We were close last year and this year we’re just really hitting our stride. I mean, until the last lap when the 38 and the 11 wrecked I was gonna finish fourth or fifth and it just fell in our lap, which I feel like things rarely fall in our lap in a good way. It’s usually on a bad note, so we’re using our luck up now. We’ve got to keep it paced through the season to make sure we have just enough for those last few races.”
Ford Finishing Results:
1st – Layne Riggs
5th – Ty Majeski
8th – Ben Rhodes
15th – Cole Butcher
17th – Austin Varco
20th – Frankie Muniz
22nd – Chandler Smith
27th – Jackson Lee
32nd – Jake Garcia
CHANDLER SMITH, No. 38 Hard Rock Casino Tejon/Hard Rock Cafe Ford F-150 – WHAT HAPPENED IN OVERTIME? “The 11 overshot the corner. I drove it off in there really deep and when I lifted I noticed that he kind of surged, so I was like, ‘He’s not gonna make the corner,’ so I backed it up to try to get a good shape to get a good exit and cross him back. When I did it was too far left and when he ricocheted it off the wall, there I was. It wasn’t in the Lord’s Will for today, truthfully. That’s the part that to a point is difficult to accept. It stings right now knowing how awesome of a Hard Rock Ford F-150 we had today. That thing was a rocket ship. It was so good. Lights out, especially after the first quarter of the race we were ridiculously good. Knowing how cool this event is and we’re probably not ever gonna come back to it – all of those things kind of sting and that’s when it’s gonna sting a little more.”
HOW MUCH CAN YOU SAY THIS COULD HAVE BEEN DIFFERENTLY AS OPPOSED TO THIS IS JUST A HIGH SPEED STREET COURSE INCIDENT? “The only thing I truthfully could have done is backed it up even more to make sure I was more further right, but then you risk if he does make it, well then I’m not gonna have a big enough run to cross him back over. At the end of the day, I do truly believe it wasn’t in God’s Will for me to win the race today and something was gonna happen, whether Kaden junks us or something else happens progressively throughout the entire lap there.”
DO YOU JUST ACCEPT THIS IS A STREET COURSE AND THESE ARE THE THINGS THAT HAPPEN? “No, not really. We’re in the top three series of NASCAR, so no, but you needed to damper your expectations for some situations I suppose, I guess, but I don’t know.”
DO YOU PUT THIS UNDER THE RACING DEAL CATEGORY OR SHOULD WE TALK TO KADEN ABOUT IT? “Kaden is a good race car driver. I think he really is. I don’t think he meant to do that intentionally. Emotions get high. There’s a win on the line. I get all that, but at what point do you draw the line in the sand when you know you’re gonna wreck yourself doing it, like with the new points format and all that, that stuff ain’t worth it and I just think he’s a smarter race car driver than that, truthfully.”
TY MAJESKI, No. 88 SPAM/Menards Ford F-150 – “I’m just glad to get on a plane and go home, I guess. This track is unique. It was challenging for us today. I really thought the race was pretty clean for most of it and then at the end sometimes these road courses get like that. Guys up front. Guys on different strategies. Guys up front who aren’t normally up front with different fuel and tires. There was a lot of parity in the race today and we didn’t have the best truck. I didn’t really do the best job either because I made some mistakes. I was just kind of on a knife edge all day long, but a solid run for our Menards Ford F-150 with Spam on the hood. We’ll take a top five and head to Lime Rock.”
BEN RHODES, No. 99 Campers Inn Ford F-150 – “This is pretty much the definition of survival. I don’t know how it could get any closer. We’ve got rubs on all four tires it seems like. I think the housing is bent. I think something on the left-front is bent and we still had a chance to potentially get a top five. It’s a survival day. It’s built Ford tough. Our Campers Inn RV had good pace, but just circumstances having to start in the back, the damage early on and going to the back again, I think we passed more people than anybody today, which shows why we picked up so much damage. I hate that. We need to start up front and just run up front and our days would be a lot easier.” WHAT ABOUT THIS EVENT OVERALL? “This place has been unbelievable. The turnout has been great. Everybody has been super kind and very welcoming for us to be here. It’s been a thriller. I hope we do some more one-off events like this in the future.”
