LAS VEGAS – Ryan Sieg sat dejected on pit road with tears forming in his eyes as he watched fellow NASCAR Xfinity Series driver AJ Allmendinger celebrate at the finish line of Las Vegas Motor Speedway while scores of cameras and microphones spawned around him.
He looked at his No. 29 RSS Racing Ford Mustang as it sat at the front of the long line of Xfinity cars that had just finished the 201-lap event on Saturday night, Oct. 19 – the spot reserved for the runner-up finisher of the event.
It was his third runner-up result of the season – and the continuation of his search for a first career win.
“This is the toughest one,” Sieg said on pit road. “[That first win] is coming. Just got to clean up a few things.”
It was an abnormally strong day for the RSS Racing No. 29 team. Sieg had qualified in tenth, which was only his seventh start in the top 10 in all of 2024. It was a result he backed up, as Sieg’s Ford slowly crawled its way through the field – not losing ground save for the occasional bad pit stop.
The speed gave him a sixth-place result in stage one and third in stage two.
It wasn’t until the 37-year-old cleared Justin Allgaier for second place late in the going that the reality of a first win seemed possible.
The only obstacle was first-place driver and playoff contender Allmendinger, and a restart with only 25 laps to go gave him a shot at the position.
While the restart was poor and cost him ground on the Kaulig racer, Sieg was able to track him back down and challenge him for the lead.
And with nine laps to go, he was side-by-side with the No. 16 of Allmendinger.
For a moment, the culmination of Sieg’s entire career – one that spans 11 years of full-time competition and 364 starts – was, at last, coming to fruition.
Then he got loose.
“I overdrove it a little bit,” Sieg explained. “If I would have just did it normal. I was going to try and clear right then, and I overdrove it and got loose.”
The ground Sieg had made was lost, and with six laps to go, the final caution of the event waved.
Sieg, who had struggled with restarts for most of the race, had two laps to overtake Allmendinger. Despite his seemingly more speed, he spun the tires on the restart and had to settle for a second-place finish.
Again.
“We were coming from behind,” Sieg said. “We had the better car. We were handling better than he was. That late caution, we didn’t…
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