Riggs Scores First Career NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Win at Milwaukee Mile
Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images
Sunday’s LIUNA! 175 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at the Milwaukee Mile will be a race Layne Riggs will never forget.
Riggs, driving the No. 38 Zorn Compressor and Equipment Ford F-150 for Front Row Motorsports, took the lead from Wisconsin’s Ty Majeski by going low in Turn 2 on lap 123, and led the rest of the way to score his first career truck series victory in a race that Majeski desperately wanted to win.
Then, celebrating on top of his truck in front of the fans on the front stretch, Riggs promptly dislocated his right shoulder by punching the air and exhorting the crowd.. While it may have been the rookie’s first win, it wasn’t the first time he’s injured that shoulder.
“The shoulder is okay now,” a smiling Riggs said afterwards. “It's fine. I've done it before, but never in victory lane. It's number nine dislocation of the shoulder, so it's only like fast, jerk motions. I guess I got a little too excited, but it's all good now. I'll numb the pain later.”
Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images
Despite qualifying 16th on Saturday, Riggs was confident he was going to be moving forward in Sunday’s race.
“We're just a little too tight in practice yesterday, but I knew we had really solid balance to the truck and in qualifying we just made a wrong adjustment, went too far, it was too loose. I thought it was gonna be about 30th. And they (the crew) said it was gonna be about 15,16. So considering the lap that I felt like I ran and put together, it was better than I thought. I knew right from the rag (green flag) we were going to go forward.
“I was very active about my adjustments today, getting confident behind the wheel, getting to know the trucks better, how much the adjustment makes, versus like a late model adjustment, which is a lot more fine, too. So I knew how much I needed today.
“That little bit of experience I've had this year at the short tracks put me in contention to be able to make the right adjustments and tell my crew chief what I need. But to get to run with Ty (Majeski) there at the end was awesome. I know it's his place. His fans are a little disappointed in.me. He didn't win.
“I was really fighting the truck at the end, trying to make it turn and put a lot of left side brake in just making it turn around the corner, just really tight.
“Clean air is king,” Riggs continued. “And I think if I didn't make that move on that restart at the end, I was saying to him (Majeski), I wouldn't have been able to pass. And so you got to take the holes when they come, these opportunities when you have them.”
Riggs, a second generation driver, came into his first full season in the truck series full of confidence that he’d get a win. But once the season started reality set in. Riggs admits the win came sooner than he thought.
“It has. Naturally, it's going to happen. Coming in at the beginning of the season, I knew it was a great team and guns are blazing, we’re gonna win our first race win, all of them, all of them.
“You always get humbled at the beginning of the year. I was. I was expecting that, but now I got really, really humble and really humbled, and just kept pushing me down, pushing me down. And you question a lot of things at times, but my guys never quit working. They never took an okay truck to the track for me. They always gave their A game, and that's what gave me confidence in them and I'm so glad they had confidence in me to keep giving me good trucks. I'm just so glad we can do it this soon.
“I was just thinking rookie season, we're going to come in and do this. We can. Hey, we might be lucky with the win if we get really lucky. You know, everybody rights in front of me, I get lucky and win the race. But just to come out here and just stomp them and pass them and take the lead and dominate that way. It's feels so much better.”
Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images
As excited as Riggs was to win, Majeski couldn’t hide the disappointment of coming up 1.516-seconds short of winning at his home-state track with the possibility he might not get another chance in the near term.
“Yeah, so close. If there's one of these last three (races on the schedule) that I wanted, it’s this one. To be at the Milwaukee Mile, a lot of people in the stands here today, would have been quite a celebration tonight, but, man, just short. Closed at different times over the course of the last run. Just not enough.
“For as bad as I felt like we missed it today, for as close as we were,” Majeski continued, “it means our trucks are good. They're making a lot of grip, even though we missed the balance on them. And yeah, pretty proud of that. We've had a lot of effort going into the last few weeks, over the Olympic break and into this race on making our trucks better.”
Earlier in the day, Wisconsin State Fair Park board chairman, John Yingling, confirmed to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series would not be returning to The Mile in 2025.
Well aware of the rumors, Majeski was hopeful that NASCAR would return to the state in the future.
“If we don't come back here, (I) feel like there's such a good craving and hunger for racing in Wisconsin. This is such a great area for racing fans in general, and I think it's a huge missed opportunity if NASCAR doesn't come here. The crowd was fantastic today, had to be over 10,000 it looked like, up there. So, yeah, I wish we were able to come back here.
“I know there's a lot of business that goes into those decisions behind the scenes that I know nothing about, but(I’m) just from a guy from Wisconsin. It's a short track race, right? I think we need to be coming back to Wisconsin in some way, shape or form, whether that's here, Road America or anywhere else for that matter.Hopefully NASCAR can find a way to continue to do that.”
Having just won his first career NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at The Mile, Riggs was also hopeful of coming back..
“Yeah, I really enjoyed this track. It's fun. It's very technical and a driver’s track. So yeah, we should be coming back, and hopefully we are.”
After all, it’s a race, and a track, he’ll never forget.