HAMPTON, Ga.: Riley Herbst came to Atlanta Motor Speedway with a plan to take the trophy home in Saturday night’s RAPTOR King of Tough 250 on his birthday.
In an uneventful race up until the last two laps, that goal was right outside the front windshield and then it disappeared.
Starting Stage 1 in the fourth position, the No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang driver would battle a race car that was loose, going into the corners and tight through the center of the turn.
Even though he was fighting with the car, the Stewart-Haas driver would lightheartedly tell the team, “I’m saving a lot of fuel for you.”
Coming to the end of the stage, the team reassured him that they would work on the handling of the race car.
Finishing in the second position in Stage 1, Herbst would come to pit road for a set of new Goodyear tires, fuel and a trackbar adjustment.
Sending Herbst back out to the track to start Stage 2 in the fifth position, the team would reassure him that he was doing a good job and that it was too early to be aggressive.
Consistent in the second stage and wanting nothing to do with the bottom lane, the Las Vegas, Nev. native would hover in the top five and communicate to the team that the car felt “skaty” and that he was loose coming out of turn three.
Even with a loose car, Herbst would finish the stage in the third position.
With the start of the third and final stage, Herbst would turn on the heat. On Lap 117, the 25-year-old driver would make a power move, forcing A.J. Allmendinger out of the way and moving his way into second place.
With approximately 30 laps to go, crew chief Richard Boswell would come across the radio telling Herbst “We’re getting to the point where we want to protect our right rear. Be Smart. Be Smooth.”
Listening carefully to his team and assuming that he had enough fuel in the tank to finish the race, Herbst would relay to the team, “Okay, I’m going to push here.”
Unfortunately for the driver, a miscalculation in fuel mileage left the driver running out of fuel with two laps remaining.
“I’m surprised we ran out, but I think I have a little indication why we ran out,” Herbst said after the race. “I feel like when I was trying to push the 2 (Jesse Love} for him to run out, I felt like we ran the whole field out if that makes sense.”
Herbst added, “I felt like that if we just rode there and I didn’t pick the pace up, I feel like the whole field would have been alright.
“In a drafting track, there is a catalyst to pick up the lap time and I felt that I was that catalyst to kinda push the field because we were pretty confident of making it.”
Returning to pit road for a splash of gas, the Ford driver would lose a lap in the whole process and later be issued a penalty for pitting outside the box trapping the former Xfinity Series winner a lap down for the green-white-checkered finish.
Herbst was able to pick up a few positions in the two-lap shootout, finishing 15th but wondering what could have been.
“I think that’s two weeks in a row. I hate to say that but two weeks in a row I think we had a real good shot at winning and two different reasons we didn’t win but the moral of the story we were out of gas,” explained Herbst.
Looking forward to the next race, Herbst would go on to say, “Move on to Vegas. Had success there in the past and should have another really fast car. Next week is going to be a really big challenge. This series is really deep, so hopefully, we can bring our A game and go execute.”
Next up for Riley Herbst is The LiUna at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Saturday, March 2, 2024 at 5:00 pm E.T
Follow Grace Krenrich on Twitter @grace3140 or email at [email protected]
