FORT WORTH – After two rough NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS) races at Phoenix (Ariz.) International Raceway and Auto Club (Calif.) Speedway RSS Racing’s Ryan Sieg returned to form Friday night at Texas Motor Speedway.
Sieg in his family owned No. 39 RMS South Chevrolet Camaro was able to combat handling woes during the middle stages of the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 to fight back and finish 10th, earning his first top-10 run since an eighth-place finish at Kansas Speedway last October.
“It was great night,” said Sieg. “The car kept getting better and better as the night went. The car was better on the long runs, I mean it was good on the short runs, but we really had a good long run car.”
Known up for his upbeat personality, Sieg said he reached a low point after his 29th place finish in California two weeks ago which made him question whether or not he wanted to stay behind the wheel.
“We needed this finish pretty bad,” added Sieg. “I was pretty low. I almost got to the point where if something wasn’t going to change, I wasn’t going to come to the track anymore. This turned it around for sure. It was a team effort. We worked together.”
The Tucker, Georgia native had some additional help on the pit box this weekend which proved to pay dividends in the sixth race of the season. Mike Ford, who sat atop the box as crew chief for Sieg’s teammate Dylan Lupton at Phoenix and Auto Club severed as a consultant on Friday night for the No. 39, a move that Sieg said earlier in the day was paying off.
“He’s done a good job working with Cowboy (Kevin Starland, crew chief),” said Sieg of Ford. “He brings a lot to the table and has a lot of good ideas.”
Sieg is no stranger to producing a lot with a little, but the much-needed finish on Friday night puts his team back on right path heading to Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway for the first of four XFINITY Series Dash 4 Cash races, where Sieg is a sentimental favorite.
In four starts at the high-banked half-mile oval, Sieg has never finished worse than 20th but realizes it will take more than that to find himself hunting for the $100,000 Dash4Cash bonus, which is determined through two 50-lap heat races before the 200-lap main event.
“I feel good, he said. “We’re hoping we can apply to what we learned this weekend. Since we unloaded the car kept getting better and better. We were a little behind as far as setups for the first five races and we got caught up tonight. Hopefully, what we learned tonight will help us next weekend at Bristol.”
Whatever the outcome is next week, Sieg can soak in his fourth career top-10 and a jump to 11th in points after slipping six positions (from ninth) in the last two races putting him back into XFINITY chase contention mode.
Oddly enough, Sieg’s father, Rod was not in attendance Friday night at TMS. A rare site for the Georgia-based team. Phoning from a family cruise in the Caribbean, the elder Sieg said he wished he was at the race track rather than cruising.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
