SPEEDWAY, Ind. — It’s not often that you see Ryan Sieg make a mistake in the NASCAR XFINITY Series.
However, after qualifying eighth on Saturday afternoon with his No. 39 RSS Racing Chevrolet, Sieg and his crew chief Kevin Starland missed the mandatory drivers and crew chief meeting.
NASCAR penalized the team for being absent by sending them to the rear of the field before the green flag.
Patiently, Sieg muscled his way through the field and even recovered from being involved in a Lap 38 accident in Turn 4 with Spencer Gallagher, Blake Koch and Tyler Reddick.
After repairs, Sieg had to charge through the field once again and climbed to 14th when the checkered flag waved, earning his fourth top-15 finish of 2017.
“It was a challenging day for our RSS Racing team, but we made the best of it,” said Sieg. “We had an awesome qualifying effort but then as a team we just made an honest mistake and missed the drivers’ meeting.
“No excuses. We were busy talking about our race strategy and overlooked it.
“On the flip side, we still had a decent day even after getting involved in that wreck. This was a solid finish and some momentum to carry us back to Iowa Speedway next weekend.”
Next Saturday afternoon, Sieg returns to Iowa Speedway, the home of his career-best finish in XFINITY Series competition. In June, his RSS Racing took advantage of another team’s gutsy call to stay out late in the race and propelled them forward to finish behind William Byron for his third career top-five finish.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
