You just thought Carson Kvapil’s first career win at Indianapolis Motor Speedway had been a long time coming. Kvapil’s 63-race wait to score his first career NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series victory doesn’t even come close to holding a candle to Ryan Sieg, who maintained persistence through 423 defeats in NASCAR’s second-tier series.
On Friday night in the Winn-Dixie 250, Sieg was rewarded for his tireless dedication with his first career win in his 424th attempt.
“No, this is incredible, unbelievable,” Sieg said in his victory interview on The CW. “Especially to do it here at Daytona. I’ve been coming here since I was a baby. We’ve come here for every summer race. And no, to do it right now, and the way we did it, that’s amazing.”
Sieg continued, “This has been a long time coming, and last week we got the pole, and we came back to Daytona, where I really wanted to win. And we did it.”
Sieg, who started 12th in Friday night’s race, never saw the lead of the race during regulation of the event. However, a crash involving Rajah Caruth with three laps to go, sent the race into an Overtime finish, and when Carson Kvapil and Justin Allgaier hooked up in the top lane, it paved a path on the inside for Sieg, who was now leading that lane.
A series of pushes from Austin Hill put Sieg in a position to battle for the top spot, which he took with two laps to go. He never looked back, as he crossed the finish line clear of the competition while Austin Hill defeated Kvapil for the runner-up spot in the march back to the finish line.
What was going through Sieg’s mind in the closing laps as he was trying to finally buck the 1,000-pound monkey off his back?
“Just don’t mess up and get too far out was the biggest thing,” Sieg said. “And definitely just watching both lanes. We had a good enough car to do it, and just thanks to Chevrolet, Hendrick power, Joe Custer, Haas, everybody that helps this whole 38 team. Just super excited to do it here at Daytona.”
Kvapil, who had won the last two races heading into this weekend’s event at Daytona, would come home with a third-place finish, and Anthony Alfredo, who has impressed driving the No. 96 Chevrolet for Viking Motorsports, came home in fourth.
Brandon Jones, Justin Allgaier, Brennan Poole, Harrison Burton, Jeb Burton, and Sheldon Creed rounded out the top-10 finishers in the race.
With this race serving as the regular-season finale, the 12-driver Chase for the Championship field was set on Friday night.
The 12 drivers, who will compete for the title in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, are: Justin Allgaier, Carson Kvapil, Sheldon Creed, Jesse Love, Austin Hill, Brandon Jones, Corey Day, Sammy Smith, Parker Retzlaff, Sam Mayer, Taylor Gray, and Rajah Caruth.
Caruth, despite the crash with three laps to go, was able to hang onto the last slot by a margin of five points over William Sawalich, who was wiped out in a Lap 46 crash. Brent Crews also failed to make it into the Chase, as he fell short by six points. Crews was also heavily involved in a crash on Friday night.
