Ryan Sieg, RSS Racing fight for Xfinity Series playoff spot in stacked field
07/26/2024 08:05 AM
Ryan Sieg is all too familiar with the position he‘s currently in. Four times has his family-operated Georgia-based organization qualified for the Xfinity Series playoffs.
"We‘re in a good spot and don‘t want to give up points," Sieg told Jayski.com recently of his playoff positioning.
With four races remaining in the 2023 season, Sieg made a crew chief change, hiring Matt Noyce to take over the No. 39 Ford. In a lackluster season, the duo immediately clicked and would be paired together for 2024.
Noyce splits his time between RSS‘ Georgia headquarters and Stewart-Haas Racing‘s facility in Kannapolis, N.C. It led to an increased travel schedule, which saw him fly home with the team and spend the majority of his week with RSS. He travels to SHR on Thursdays to stay current with the team‘s technical alliance with the powerhouse Ford group, which began ahead of the 2021 season, switching from Chevrolet.
Sieg‘s statistics are on par with several years of his career. The No. 39 team‘s lone top-five finish came in April at Texas Motor Speedway, where Sam Mayer executed a last-lap pass to clip Sieg by .002 seconds in a photo finish. Several times throughout the 2024 season, Sieg has wondered what he would have done differently at TMS, with a victory guaranteeing him a spot into the postseason. It also would have been his only victory in 354 series starts.
"That one always runs across my mind when you start looking at the points," Sieg added. "Things work out for a reason. We will get there. Every week, we‘re getting better throughout the year, so Matt and I are figuring it out. It‘s a building process: everything, from [Stewart]-Haas to Matt and I and what we need."
With just four top-10 finishes, Sieg has the fewest top 10s of the bubble drivers. Tallying 73 stage points, including a stage victory last weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, he ranks 13th of full-time drivers in the series in stage points. And his 15.2 average finish is tied for 10th in the series with Shane van Gisbergen.
By tying a season-high 44 points at IMS, Sieg jumped to the provisional elimination line, three points ahead of Sammy Smith, who he outscored by 25 points last weekend. He ranks 10th in the regular season standings, ahead of three of the four JR Motorsports entries.
"We‘ve had a good year," Noyce said of the No. 39 team‘s season. "We‘ve had some bad races and have given away more points than we‘ve gotten points that we shouldn‘t have. Not really worried about it, but it‘s about being realistic in what we‘re doing and how we‘ve got to race."
With a restricted budget, RSS tends to select races that it believes the No. 39 Ford will excel at and puts an added emphasis on those to perform well at. Not being in the Charlotte hub makes for long travel days to the Ford Performance simulator once a month. Earlier this season, Sieg and Noyce attempted to try setups for multiple race tracks on the simulator on the same day. But it became too clustered and not much work was done on a given track.
"We cherry-pick races where we are putting all of our eggs into the basket," Noyce said. "We try one or two tracks at most. We tried to do three in one day once and you don‘t take anything away from it. The simulator makes you better. When you unload, you‘re not one adjustment away. When we don‘t run the simulator, we‘re probably one or two adjustments away."
With nearly a month between races, this is a crucial stretch for RSS. The No. 39 team believes it can punch a playoff ticket, but realizes the grueling upcoming schedule. With six races remaining in the regular season, there are two superspeedways and a road course. The next race at Michigan will also have superspeedway characteristics, similar to Indianapolis last weekend. Five of the six chassis Sieg will have underneath him are completed and ready to go at the shop.
Just being in the conversation and ahead of multiple JRM cars, two Kaulig Racing cars — despite van Gisbergen leading the series with three wins — and multiple high-budgeted, mid-pack Xfinity teams, is a confidence boost. The alliance with the reigning series championship-winning team, which enters the break with back-to-back victories, doesn‘t hurt either.
"The whole alliance we have with Haas is so comfortable," Noyce said. "The resources we have available, we‘re maximizing them. Ryan knows, we‘re not doing anything off the wall or crazy. We‘re just trying to have base hits and go off what we know. He‘s had better years statistically wise, but the competition is tougher right now.
"We‘re not swinging the fences or trying to throw Hail Mary‘s every week. We‘re trying to be disciplined about it and that‘s what has kept us flowing all year and put us in position. We might have to start throwing some Hail Mary‘s if it comes down to it."
Making the playoffs is a bonus for smaller race teams. It can also lock in a bigger pay day, which can go a long way towards developing cars for the following season.
"It‘s pretty big because there is more money in it," Sieg added. "You always want to make the playoffs and there are a lot of benefits to doing that. Publicity, SciAps, everybody on board: it helps everything, sponsorship wise, money wise, everything. That‘s what we‘re focused on.
"We‘re chipping away at it each week. We‘re getting closer, closer and closer. We‘re doing what we need to do. If it comes down to it and we need to win, we will have to do some plays. There are [six] races before the playoffs, so we will have to do something then. I feel like we have a good shot with what we have going on."
Minimizing points lost will continue being a key component on whether the No. 39 team makes the playoffs or not.
The series‘ next race at Michigan is a place where Sieg has been ho-hum throughout his career, having never finished better than 12th or worse than 19th in nine starts. Then there are tracks like Bristol coming up where he has consecutive top-10 results. The biggest hurdle will be Watkins Glen International, as Sieg admittedly struggles on road courses, though he did take part in a Goodyear tire test in late June.
