NNS: Ryan Sieg avoids call for pushing, finishes 3rd at Daytona - MotorSportsTalk

Perhaps the biggest reason for Kasey Kahne winning last night’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Daytona International Speedway was the help he got behind him from Ryan Sieg.

However, the Nationwide Series has a rule in which pushing another car (in effect, tandem drafting) is forbidden – and earlier in the Subway Firecracker 250, race officials tagged Josh Wise and Landon Cassill with drive-through penalties for that very reason.

But in post-race comments, NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton explained why officials didn’t call Sieg for pushing.

“When you look at any of the situations and the cars make contact and bump and in that last lap there, a car will close on another car and the accordion will close up and make tight quarters all the way down through the whole row,” he said to reporters late last night.

“Cars are moving side to side, which tells you they are not directly connected.”

As part of the no pushing rule in Nationwide competition, cars are allowed to bump other cars in the draft but cannot stay “locked” together.

With the no-call, Sieg’s third-place result stands and it’s a big deal for the 27-year-old, who runs for the small RSS Racing team in the Nationwide Series.

“Hopefully, it will bring some more sponsors,” Sieg said in a statement. “We have some sponsors here and there, but it would be nice to have a full-time sponsor, because we run full-time Nationwide, hopefully we turned some eyes.”

Sieg’s efforts got the attention of both Kahne and his Nationwide Series team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr., who both praised him for being able to run with the big boys.

“He does a great job,” Kahne said. “It’s tough to run with the JR team and Gibbs and Penske and Roush and Turner Motorsports. He does a good job with what they have, and if he keeps it up, he’ll get more opportunities.”

Earnhardt said he first noticed Sieg earlier this year at Dover, and was impressed.

“I haven’t really paid a ton of attention to him prior to that,” he continued. “He had a couple runs during the race at Dover that were better than anyone outside the Top-5 for sure. He kinda hung around and raced with the 62 [Brendan Gaughan] and a couple of other guys in some equipment that’s far better than his.

“It was great to see him run well [Friday], because I think he does a lot with very little, so [it’s] good to see.”

Additionally, Sieg was able to make the Nationwide Series’ Dash 4 Cash with his third-place result. The Dash 4 Cash, which begins next weekend at New Hampshire, is a series of four races in which four eligible, full-time NNS drivers can compete for a $100,000 bonus that goes to the highest finisher in the D4C group.

For New Hampshire, the D4C drivers are Sieg, Regan Smith (finished second at Daytona), Ryan Reed (fourth), and Jeremy Clements (eighth).

Should one driver win the first three D4C awards at New Hampshire, Chicagoland, and Indianapolis (July 26), then win the Iowa race outright on Aug. 2, Nationwide Insurance will award a $600,000 bonus to that driver – bringing the total payout to $1 million.

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Vicki Golden has earned a career worthy of a thousand stories and 805 Beer tells at least one of them, as “Inverted Perspective” premiered March 30 on the company’s website and YouTube channel.

Golden did more to break the glass ceiling in SuperMotocross than she ever thought possible. She knows this because riders have never felt the need to explain any of her accomplishments with the disclaimer, “for a girl”.

At this point in Golden’s career, she’s been the first woman to finish top 10 in AMA Arenacross Lites, the first woman to qualify in the Fast 40 in Monster Energy AMA Supercross and the first woman to compete in freestyle Moto X competition, earning a bronze medal by doing so.

Her love for moto came from childhood while she watched her dad and brother ride. By seven she was on her bike and making waves throughout Southern California.

Golden, 30, is still madly in love with the sport and has no plans on moving away but her career is already one to talk about. 805 Beer’s film series wanted to do exactly that.

“I’m taken aback by it all,” Golden told NBC Sports about the documentary. “It’s just crazy to see your story, it’s one thing to live your life and battle everything that comes about but it’s another to just sit there and talk about it.”

805 approached Golden about the feature by asking, “Do you even realize that what you do, and your story is special?”

Golden took the question as a blank canvas to map out the highs and lows of her career and life.

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The title “Inverted Perspective” came from a brainstorming session with Dominick Russo and it highlights Golden’s outlook on the sport of SuperMotocross and her life in general.

“My whole life, my whole career was thinking differently and looking at things that shouldn’t be done and aren’t there, while being able to make a place for myself, where no one thought there should be a place,” Golden said. “It’s inspiring someone to think in different ways. It sums up my life.”

*Vicki Golden is not “fast for a girl”; she’s just fast. – 805 Beer*

While Golden is no stranger to the spotlight, this was the first time she’s been fully involved with the storytelling and creation of a feature about herself.

“It’s not like a full new experience,” Golden said. “Obviously, you get your standard questions about your upbringing and accomplishments, but I’ve never really put into perspective things that happened in my past with my dad and putting that to light. Also, certain other things that maybe got overlooked in previous interviews or films. I wanted to touch on these and Dom wanted to create a story. It’s just cool to see it come to light, it’s a nearly impossible thing to tell somebody’s life story in 40 minutes.”

Golden’s father was left paralyzed after an ATV accident, robbing him the opportunity to ride again. This happened a few months before the father-daughter duo was set to compete in the Loretta Lynn’s Amateur Nationals when Vicki was 12. While she might have been unable to grasp the severity at the time, it’s something she carries with her. Golden continues to ride in his honor.

Years later, an accident in 2018 nearly sidelined the then 25-year-old Vicki when a freestyle accident almost resulted in the amputation of her lower leg.

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Golden 805 Beer — *Vicki Golden has ridden a variety of disciplines in SuperMotocross, which gives her a unique perspective. – 805 Beer*

“Inverted Perspective” highlights her father’s diligence in helping Vicki continue with her career and the kindness and strength he carried while fighting his own battle.

“My dad was the entire reason that I started riding in the first place,” Golden said. “So, to honor his memory and to honor what we went through and how hard he pushed to keep our dream alive and keep everything going – in that sense then, it was really special to be able to honor him and talk about him.”

The 40-minute feature was filmed entirely in black and white, a stark contrast from the oversaturated world of motocross where the brighter the suit the easier it is for fans to find their rider and follow him in the race. By filming in monochrome Russo and Golden had the chance to focus on the race and track from a different perspective.

“It was cool to be able to film it differently,” Golden said. “It created a challenge in the sense of what was going to be more visually impactful for the film.

“I couldn’t be here without the companies that back me but at the same time, it’s not like the logos or colors disappeared, it’s just different lights shed on different spots. It’s just a cool way to do it and to take color away and still be impactful. When you think of black and white, you think of old school, the OG way of doing things.”

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