On April 7, 2022 at Martinsville Speedway, it's probably safe to say not many people were paying attention to Tim Viens' G2G Racing team and the debuting driver it entered in its No. 46 car, which started and finished 34th after completing 107 of 200 laps.

That driver was Kaden Honeycutt, an 18-year-old CARS Late Model Stock Tour regular with two wins in the series the previous year. But for roughly 99 out of 100 drivers with his funding – or lack thereof – finding any competitive opportunity in NASCAR's top three series was going to be a pipe dream.

Honeycutt was the 100th. And now, four years later, he's a Craftsman Truck Series champion.

Kaden Honeycutt has reached the top of the NASCAR Truck Series mountain, and he climbed it the hard way

Honeycutt quickly proved he was no ordinary field-filler. Later in the 2022 season, he earned a second start with G2G at Nashville Superspeedway and finished an impressive 21st. He then shortly took over Steven Lane's On Point Motorsports entry and scored three top 15 finishes, including his first career top 10 in the season finale at Phoenix Raceway, for a team that previously only had two results better than 20th that year.

The grind continued the following season. Honeycutt turned heads with Roper Racing at the Bristol Dirt Race, starting third and finishing ninth. He scored two additional top 10 finishes for Young's Motorsports and also landed a one-off opportunity with Niece Motorsports at Pocono Raceway, which he parlayed into a ride for the majority of the 2024 season.

Pulling himself up by his own bootstraps as he went, Honeycutt ran his first full season in 2025 and joined powerhouse TRICON Garage for 2026, stepping into the seat that Corey Heim had just won 12 races and the title in. And he did not disappoint, with five victories as well as the biggest trophy of all.

When a driver like Honeycutt succeeds, it's just worth more. He didn't buy his way to the top. He wasn't signed to some lucrative development deal with a Cup Series-affiliated team before he'd even hit puberty. He's not the son of a team owner or a former driver.

Honeycutt is at TRICON because owner David Gilliland and sponsor Safelite – the team's sponsor, not his – believed in his talent. It's a refrain that's become all too rare in today's NASCAR, but it makes it all the more special when a rags-to-riches story like his comes along.

It goes to show that even in this day and age, talented drivers can still rise to the top the old-school way. Ross Chastain, Alex Bowman, and Carson Hocevar have all found success at the Cup level after entering the ranks driving for low-budget operations. Chase Briscoe worked at his ARCA team's race shop and slept on a friend's couch to get a foot in the door.

Honeycutt's odds may have been the longest of them all. Now, he can call himself a NASCAR Truck Series champion.