Riggs Races to Fast Start

When the lead pack came charging toward the finish of Sunday’s Daytona 500, all the big dogs were in the hunt. There were Dale Earnhardt Jr., the people’s choice and last year’s winner; Kurt Busch, the Nextel Cup champion; Tony Stewart, the 2002 champion; and Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon, the Hendrick Motorsports partners who won 13 races last year. The flower of NASCAR was shooting it out on the high banks at 190 mph.

And right in the midst of the skirmish was the No. 10 Valvoline Chevrolet driven by Scott Riggs, a second-year Nextel Cup driver who’d had an uneventful rookie season, running down Stewart and Johnson and challenging for the lead.

Heady stuff for a 34-year-old from Bahama, N.C., who had never finished better than fifth in a Nextel Cup race.

“For a few moments there, when we got to fifth with 20 [laps] to go, I thought we might have a chance at the win,” Scott said from his North Carolina home before flying to California for Sunday’s Auto Club 500 at California Speedway. “We’d just moved from 24th with 40 laps to go, and the car was holding the bottom [of the track] real well.

“I’m not sure, running three abreast, but I think we got up to third with a couple of laps to go. I might have had a shot, but the right front fender had been damaged in a little altercation with the 16 [Greg Biffle’s car] and the car didn’t pull like I’d hoped it would.

“When the green-white-checkered came out [on a restart] for a two-lap shootout, I was fifth. I wanted to work with the 48 [Johnson] and the 24 [Gordon] because we were all using Hendrick engines. We were three-wide with Stewart and Johnson when I got a little [drafting] help from Sterling Marlin and Mark Martin and picked off the 48 and the 20 [Stewart] on the last lap, but somebody was blocking me.”

The blocker was Busch.

“With the restart at Daytona, you always look for where anybody isn’t on the racetrack and the yellow [bottom] line was open,” Busch said. “I dove down there and got a rearview full of the 10 car and Riggs pushed me. He was gonna go by me if I didn’t block him, so I blocked him and he pushed me by the 48 and the 8 [Earnhardt], and he caught me again coming off Turn 2.

“He gave me another bump, but that wasn’t enough momentum to get me past [Gordon]. I wouldn’t have cleared him coming off Turn 4 and it would probably have been three-wide, four-wide and more likely a six-car pileup, so I got on the binders and held the bottom groove so we could finish second.”

Gordon won, followed by Busch, Earnhardt and Riggs.

Riggs traced his improvement to a new car chief, Rodney Childers, who works directly under crew chief Doug Randolph; a new mechanic, Brad Fritts, brought in by Childers; and a new spotter, Chris Morris.

“Those little personnel changes made a huge difference in the team chemistry,” Riggs said. “I had known Rodney and raced against him in late-model races and he has such a great attitude and we have a mutual respect for each other that things just clicked. Everybody believes in each other, and that breeds a winning attitude.”

Although he was pleased with his Daytona showing, Riggs knows that California Speedway on Sunday and Las Vegas two weeks later will be different.

“Running on a restrictor-plate track [Daytona keeps top speeds about 200 mph by requiring restrictor plates on carburetors] is 100% different than racing at a track like California,” Riggs said. “So is Las Vegas.

“Both are down-force tracks, but we tested on both of them before the season started and we were among the five fastest. Besides that, we have had good luck at California and that is always nice to remember when you are going back.”

Two years ago, Riggs won his first Busch series race at Fontana.

“We had to start last because of an engine change, but we came all the way ... to win,” he said.

That was the day that Riggs had promised fans at the team’s souvenir trailer that if he won he would return and do cartwheels. After completing his victory lap and media obligations, the happy winner went back and gave fans a series of cartwheels.

“I was so excited, I could have done cartwheels all night,” he said. “I don’t think a lot of people thought I’d go back out there, but I called the lady that ran the trailer and told her I was coming. I gave the fans a show. I don’t know if it was very good or not, but it was a show nonetheless.”

Riggs also won the pole at California Speedway for the 2001 Craftsman truck series race, and last September his seventh-place finish was his second-best in the 36-race Nextel Cup season. He finished fifth at Dover, Del., the only other time he was in the top 10.

“Hopefully, this entire season will be a million miles away from the luck we had last year,” Riggs said. “Right now, we’ve got a big ball of momentum rolling and it’s getting bigger and bigger. This is going to be a fun year for us.”

Sounds like more cartwheels ahead.