After back-to-back race wins in the Truck Series playoffs Layne Riggs and Front Row Motorsports team have hit a brick wall. The #38 team was unable to clear the tech inspection ahead of the Round of 8 race at Talladega Speedway on Friday.

Not just one, the team failed to get their No. 38 truck clear after three successive attempts. Although they can still get their truck cleared to compete in the race, more failures in clearing the tech could see them miss out on the qualifying rounds. Which would see them start the race at the tail end of the pack.

Sharing an update about Layne Riggs’ situation at Talladega, Bob Pockrass on his X account wrote, “Layne Riggs truck failed three times in tech and won’t make a qualifying lap. Still has to pass. Parsons and Maggio trucks failed twice and will lose pit selection for next event.”

There could not be a link between today’s event and the Front Row Motorsports lawsuit on NASCAR. If anything it could be a huge coincidence. However, Kenny Wallace did predict something of the sort could happen in the future. “I’ve never seen this part go good because, in the past, it’s harder to go through tech inspection. I’ve seen this movie play out before, and it don’t play out real good.” He said this on the Kenny Conversations.

While Wallace only predicted such events that could pan out. The fans are starting to speculate if NASCAR is retaliating against FRM by holding Riggs’ truck in the tech inspection at Talladega.

Fans react to Front Row Motorsports misery at Talladega

Layne Riggs was having the best time of his racing career during the first round of playoffs, acting as a big spoiler. However, his good run was put to a halt by a suspicious tech clearing process, according to this race fan. He further predicted that 23XI Racing and Denny Hamlin could receive a similar treatment for the Cup event. “NASCAR already getting to Front Row. Watch out 23XI and Denny.”

While NASCAR is yet to respond to the claims and lawsuit filed by FRM and 23XI Racing, there were other avenues through which they could impact those teams. And this fan trying to connect the dots was surprised that NASCAR was swift in their rebuttal. “Surprised they didn’t even wait a week or two before coming down on them 😂.”

Riggs was on a dream run with two back-to-back wins at Milwaukee Mile and Bristol. He almost made it three out of three at Kansas last weekend but had to settle for second place behind Corey Heim. It was indeed a surprise that all of a sudden the #38 team was able to find the race-winning speed. But it looks like NASCAR might have found the means through which they raced up front. “Whatever speed they found recently, NASCAR also just found,” a fan replied on X.

Although this was indeed a big setback already for the team, a Reddit user was quick to highlight that things could go south during the race. “Don’t forget this race is in like three hours.” However, not everyone was sold on the fact that this was NASCAR’s reply to the lawsuit filed by FRM.

There is indeed a genuine chance that teams might not clear tech. Recently, we saw the likes of Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott start the race on the rear after having troubles with their race cars. Dismissing any link between the off-track saga with FRM’s troubles at Talladega, this fan wrote, “Front Row truck failing 3 times; let the lawsuit blame begin 🤣….”

An update by Bob Pockrass revealed that Riggs truck was given the green light, passing the tech inspection on the fourth attempt.