LEBANON, Tenn. – As soon as Riley Herbst rolled off the grid, he realized he had a problem.
“[My cool suit] made a weird noise. It clunked a little bit, but what are we going to do when we’re rolling off,” he said.
From that point on, Herbst got hotter and hotter. His suit completely failed. It’s not the first time that’s happened to the Las Vegas native, but never in 95-degree heat.
Herbst made the executive decision to unplug the suit and he marinated in hot water for two hours, soaking inside the already toasty cockpit. Yet somehow, he powered through the circumstances to wheel his No. 98 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford to a sixth-place finish at Nashville Superspeedway.
“It was just a miserable day and we fought through,” he said. “I’m just proud of that, proud of the effort on the guys to make the race car better and finish with — should have had a top five, but top 10.”
Herbst ended up finishing seventh in Stage One as the race stayed green for all 45 laps. His crew didn’t attempt to cool the interior of the car, but as his vision got blurry during Stage Two, Herbst realized the team needed to do something.
After the stage was complete, Herbst came down pit road before it opened in dire need of service. His vision started to get blurry Herbst unlatched his window net and the team attempted to drain the suit. A crew member blew a fan inside the car and switched out water bottles.
Before he could fall a lap down, the team reattached the window net and got Herbst back onto the racetrack. Since he pitted early, he had to star from the rear.
After the stop, Herbst felt slightly better. He also attributed the addition of window slots to the rear windshield to what kept him in the seat. The slots help cycle outside air back inside the racecar.
“When Kevin Harvick ran these cars a few years ago, he thought they were extremely hot and mentioned to NASCAR, mentioned to NASCAR,” he said. “They got the rear slots put in this year, which kind of hurt us aerodynamically. We’ve been kind of struggling with that a little bit. But I don’t know what I would have been like if I didn’t have the slots.
“Stage Two was the hardest. That’s when it got a little spotty vision, but the cold water in the car, the ice got us through.
With just one caution in the final stage, Herbst roared back into the mix and salvaged his third top-10 finish in a row. He jumped up a spot to fifth in points.
“We gained in the playoffs, got points — I’m proud of that,” he said. “I feel like we are Championship 4-type caliber speed when we execute, and we’ll keep showing that.”
Herbst won’t have long to recover. He’s expected to run Sunday’s Cup Series race with Rick Ware Racing.
Outside of heat exhaustion, he felt fine after exiting the car. When asked, Herbst said he didn’t feel like he had any burns and wanted to get fluids to prepare for the 300-lapper in the same intense heat. He’ll give both of his cool suits to RWR and hope for no malfunctions on Sunday.
“Right now, I’m at a deficit,” he said. “But the Cup cars are significantly colder than what that was right there.
“Hopefully, go to the infield care center, get a couple bags of fluids, go to sleep in 30 minutes, hop in a cup car for 400 miles and try to go learn. That’s the goal tomorrow and just make all the laps. Goal is to finish on the lead lap and learn, learn, learn.”