Ryan Sieg Earns Powerful Top 5 at Richmond

By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer

The easily visible improvement from RSS Racing was shown loud and bright Friday night at Richmond Raceway, as driver Ryan Sieg drove the No. 39 Chevrolet to a top-five finish.

Running some of the quickest times on the night, a late battle with Zane Smith ended in Sieg’s favor. The veteran held on for the fifth spot, his first top five at Richmond and his second of 2019.

“To be top five here at Richmond, a track I usually struggled [at], we don’t have the best stuff,” Sieg said. “We leaned on Shane Wilson to get us dialed in, that’s a huge part in it.”

With crew chief Wilson’s insight, Sieg maintained top-five speed nearly all night, running the fastest lap five times, his most outside Daytona all year.

“A couple times I thought we were just OK and [Wilson] would say to just ride it out, you’ll get better at the end,” he said. “You got to have everything together and we were lucky enough to come back from a pit road penalty to still get fifth.”

Sieg was best when it counted.

“We were best at the end,” he said. “We ran there all day which shows we have speed and that the cars are good.

“It was tough though. We were ahead of the No. 2 [Tyler Reddick] on the track and after pit stops, we fell behind him. It’s tough to get spots back. It’s just hard to pass, everybody is so close right there at the end on speed. It’s tough to get spots back when you lose them on pit road.

For the first time of his five-year Xfinity career, Sieg scored multiple top fives in a season. The run caused for some colorful celebration, as Sieg was seen drenched in Larry’s Hard Lemonade following the night’s race.

“They had a lot of Larry’s Lemonade during the race,” he said of the team’s excitement.