BRISTOL, Tenn. (Sept. 17, 2026) – For Jake Garcia, it was a case of stealing thunder.
For the NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series Chase drivers, it was blunder after blunder.
Driving the No. 98 ThorSport Racing Ford, Garcia took control in the third stage of Thursday night’s UNOH 250 Presented by Ohio Logistics at Bristol Motor Speedway and went on to win for the first time in his 94th start.
In the Chase opener for the series, Garcia led three times for 104 laps. On Lap 230 of 250, he wrested the lead from Stewart Friesen with an inside pass and held it the rest of the way. Garcia took the checkered flag 1.305 seconds ahead of Bayley Currey, who passed Friesen for the runner-up spot on Lap 247.
“I’m really proud of all my guys,” said Garcia, who started 12th on metrics per the rule book. “They brought an amazing truck tonight. It was good today (in practice), but qualifying got rained out, so we got a good strategy that helped us come from the back, get some track position… and just kind of took off from there.”
Garcia ended a drought for ThorSport dating to Ty Majeski’s victory in the 2024 Championship 4 event at Phoenix Raceway, but it was hardly clear sailing to the finish. Garcia lost the lead to Friesen on a Lap 220 restart and spent the next 10 laps trying to regain it.
“Had some adversity on that last restart, but fortunately the truck was fast enough to overcome that,” Garcia said. “ThorSport Racing’s a really strong team, especially historically, so just proud of all my guys on the 98 team to be able to end that winless streak.”
Currey finished second in his first Truck Series start of the season. With Friesen third, Justin Haley fourth and Tristan McKee fifth—at age 16 the youngest driver in series history to score a top five—no Chase driver finished better than sixth (Giovanni Ruggiero).
“I’ve still got it, I guess,” said Currey, who was driving the No. 5 TRICON Garage Toyota. “Just huge, huge thank you to everyone at TRICON, Toyota – just a great opportunity and glad we were able to make the most of it.
“I thought I was going to fumble it there at the end, but we were able to fight there and bring it home P2. Obviously wanted to win, but coming off the couch, I’m all right with it.”
In fact, the top four seeds in the Chase all experienced uncharacteristic difficulty. Top-seeded Layne Riggs started from the pole and won the first two stages wire-to-wire, leading the first 135 laps.
But Riggs was sixth out of the pits for the start of the final stage, and on Lap 156, he radioed to his crew that his No. 34 Front Row Racing Ford had a loose right rear wheel. Riggs pitted for four tires on Lap 161 but lost two laps to the leaders and never recovered.
After contact with the damaged No. 1 Toyota of Nick Leitz late in the race, Riggs was forced to pit road again and finished 32nd, 16 laps down.
The two stage wins proved to be a godsend for Riggs, who retained the Chase lead by three points over Kaden Honeycutt. The driver of the No. 11 Toyota finished eighth despite an unscheduled pit stop with a loose wheel under caution late in the race.
“There was a lot of fighting tonight,” Riggs said. “I’m just thankful that we had a fast enough truck that we won the first two stages and got some points, but we just came down pit road and had an absolute catastrophe of a stop.
“I don’t understand how we were that slow on the stop, and we didn’t get the wheels tight… I’m very frustrated. I feel like we had the truck to beat again.”
Third-seeded Chandler Smith suffered both a speeding penalty at the Stage 2 break and a tire losing air late in the final run. Smith finished 24th and leaves Bristol third in the standings, 30 points behind Riggs.
The Chevrolet of fourth-seeded Christian Eckes suffered early front-end damage and finished 30th. Eckes dropped four spots to eighth in the Chase standings, 58 points out of the lead.
Behind Ruggiero, William Sawalich, Honeycutt, Majeski and Grant Enfinger completed the top 10.
In ARCA Series action Thursday at Bristol Carson Brown won the Bush’s Beans 200 and rising star Tristan McKee claimed the ARCA Menards East championship crown.
“[This one’s] pretty high up there to be honest,” Brown said. “[My spotter] Derek Kneeland up on the tower was working his butt off, just being my other set of eyes. This was a tough one, but I’m glad I was able to bring it to Victory Lane for these guys.”
It was Brown’s third win of the season and it was the second time he led every lap.
Meanwhile, McKee built enough of a points cushion with his second place finish to secure his ARCA East championship crown. McKee earned the title with a bunch of top fives and also four victories.
Tickets are still available for Friday’s Food City 300 and Saturday’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race. Call 866-415-4158 to reach the BMS Ticket Sales Center or purchase tickets online at the BMS website.
-Staff and NASCAR Newswire report
UNOH 250 presented by Ohio Logistics
NASCAR CRAFSTMAN Truck Series
Thursday at Bristol Motor Speedway
Jake Garcia
Bayley Currey
Stewart Friesen
Justin Haley
Tristan McKee
Giovanni Ruggiero
William Sawalich
Kaden Honeycutt
Ty Majeski
Grant Enfinger
Ben Rhodes
Daniel Hemric
Tyler Ankrum
Landen Lewis
Dawson Sutton
Tanner Gray
Andres Perez De Lara
Corey LaJoie
Luke Baldwin
Nick Sanchez
Brenden Queen
Timmy Hill
Regan Smith
Chandler Smith
Connor Mosack
Mini Tyrell
Kris Wright
Cole Butcher
Connor Hall
Christian Eckes
Parker Eatmon
Layne Riggs
Frankie Muniz
Nick Leitz
Caden Kvapil
Jackson Macenko
Bush’s Beans 200 Results
ARCA Menards Series
Thursday at Bristol Motor Speedway
- Carson Brown
- Tristan McKee
- Kaden Honeycutt
- Max Reaves
- Isaac Kitzmiller
- Jake Bollman
- Jade Avedisian
- Andy Jankowiak
- Thomas Annunziata
- Taylor Mayhew
- Jason Kitzmiller
- Andrew Patterson
- Gavan Boschele
- Ty Fredrickson
- Gabriel Casagrande
16 Jackson McLerran - Craig Pellegrini
- Austin Vaughn
- Brian Weber
- Isabella Robusto
- Alex Clubb
- Chase Buscaglia
- Jeff Maconi
- Takuma Koga
- Quinn Davis
- Michael Maples
- Ivis Earley
28 Jake Finch - Con Nicolopoulos
- Zach Tinkle
- Brad Smith
- Hunter Wright
- Bobby Earnhardt
- Brad Perez
- Nate Moeller
