DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Ryan Sieg continues to step up when it’s needed most.
Fighting for one of the final four NASCAR Xfinity Series playoff spots, Sieg came up with a fifth-place finish – extending a streak of consistent finishes through the summer months. He jumped from 13th in points – one marker behind Sammy Smith – to 15 points above him Friday night at Daytona (Fla.) Int’l Speedway.
With his No. 39 Ford Mustang Dark Horse back in the hauler in one piece, it’s an overall good day for Sieg and RSS Racing – which is owned by his father, Rod.
“It’s exactly what we needed to come out of Daytona and to come out of Daytona in one piece is always good, and then a top five,” Ryan Sieg said after the race. “At the beginning of that race, I thought something was wrong with the car. The handling was off and it was all over the place and then to recover and I just got over and drove the heck out of it and came home fifth.”
The 37-year-old from Tucker, Ga., started deep in the field, qualifying 26th earlier in the afternoon. After a yellow on the first lap, he shot through the field, breaking into the top 10 at one point before settling for 15th at the end of Stage One.
After finishing 26th in Stage Two – which went completely green – Sieg used a few early cautions to his advantage to quickly get back up front. That allowed him to stay ahead of two big crashes coming to NASCAR Overtime.
Running in the high lane on the last lap, Sieg was part of a chain reaction that ultimately ended the race early. After a couple of big bumps, Parker Kligerman darted out of line with momentum ahead of him but made contact with A.J. Allmendinger, sending him spinning into the fence. Sieg escaped the melee to record his fifth top 10 of the campaign.
Of the last 12 races, Sieg has finished no worse than 20th and has completed every lap. In early May, he sat 14th in the championship standings but is now up to 10th – tied for his best position of the season.
Certainly, it’s easy for Sieg to look back at Texas Motor Speedway in April, where he led 17 laps and lost to Sam Mayer by 0.002 seconds. It would’ve been his first NASCAR victory in what’s now more than 450 starts.
Though Sieg’s satisfied with the recent stretch, there are still flaws within the team, he said. The veteran is hoping to secure a fifth Xfinity Series playoff berth since its inception in 2016
“We just have to finish off these races,” he said. “We’ve had some struggles at the end of the races the past three and didn’t get the finishes for where we were running. We’ve just got to put it all together and keep gaining on that and make it into the playoffs and get more points.”