LAS VEGAS, Nev.: Ryan Sieg undoubtedly had the fastest car on the track in the closing laps of Saturday afternoon’s Ambetter Health 302, but an untimely caution with less than 10 laps to go likely cost the RSS Racing driver an opportunity for his first career NASCAR Xfinity Series win.
Throughout Saturday afternoon’s race, the No. 28 SciApps Ford Mustang driver hovered inside the top five, patiently waiting for his strike.
Winless in 364 NASCAR Xfinity Series starts, the Tucker, Ga. native stepped up the pace and was able to reel in leaders AJ Allmendinger, Chandler Smith and Justin Allgaier to contend for the win in the opening race in the Round of 8 Xfinity Series Playoffs.
Putting Allgaier and Smith in his rearview mirror over the final 20 laps of the race, Sieg was able to track down Kaulig Racing’s AJ Allmendinger for the race lead.
With under 10 laps to go, Sieg, piloting one of three cars for his family-owned team, was able to be within a tenth of a second of Allmendinger. With eight laps to go, he beat the No. 16 Chevrolet back to the start-finish line to lead the lap.
By the time the cars entered Turn 1, Allmendinger and Sieg had caught Ryan Vargas’s slower car. With Vargas in the top lane, Allmendinger in the middle lane, and Sieg on the bottom, Allmendinger was able to take enough air off Sieg’s spoiler to get the No. 28 Ford Mustang sideways, forcing the Georgian to get out of the gas to recover and allow Allmendinger to reemerge with the lead.
Two laps later, the final caution fell when Playoff driver Sammy Smith stalled on the backstretch, allowing Sieg to line up beside Allmendinger for the two-lap restart.
Despite his best restart of the night, Sieg ran out of laps to regain control of the lead and finished second for the second time this season, 0.156 seconds behind Allmendinger, who advanced to the Championship 4 with his first Xfinity Series win of the season.
After the race, Sieg believed he could have gotten back to Allmendinger’s rear bump if not for the race’s seventh caution.
“Yeah, for sure. I could have got him,” said Sieg. “I just struggled on the last restart. I got a little better, but still just struggled. Even on that last one there I spun a little bit. I made it better, but not enough. It’s frustrating. We had a good car on the long run, but restarts I just need to work on. It sucks, but second is good. Damn, I want to win.”
Following the almost-crash with eight laps to go, Sieg explained why he attempted to utilize a different line around the 1.5-mile speed in an effort to reduce the delta faster in his reattempt to chase down Allmendinger.
“You get in dirty air and then I changed my line a little bit,” Sieg explained. “I knew once I got close to him, I could get him once we got at the end without the caution. I knew we could have got around him. I could have gone around the outside. We had that in our pocket, just didn’t need that late caution.”
Las Vegas recorded Sieg’s third runner-up finish of the year and his second in the last three races. Earlier this month, the 37-year-old finished second to Smith at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway.
He also finished second at Texas Motor Speedway in April with a nail-biting finish with JR Motorsports’ Sam Mayer.
This weekend’s performance, though, will be the hardest to forget, given the circumstances and speed of Sieg’s Ford Mustang—the same one he wheeled in the Lone Star State in the spring.
“This is the toughest one because we had probably the best car. I didn’t execute on the restart and spun the tires. I wasn’t able to stay beside him.
“It’s (the win) coming. We just have to clean up a few things.”
With five runner-up finishes to his credit during his Xfinity Series career, Sieg made a mic drop statement, “One of these days, it’s going to go our way.”
Follow Chris Knight on X (Twitter) @Knighter01 or email at [email protected].
