XFINITY: Kyle Sieg Walks Away From Wild Flip on Last Lap at Michigan
Seeing a 3,300 lbs. race car lifting off of the ground as if it were as light as a feather will always be an eerie and terrifying sight. Just imagine how scary it is for the driver strapped into the gravity-defying projectile hanging on and waiting for the inevitable thud when you land. That was the reality for 23-year-old NASCAR Xfinity Series racer Kyle Sieg on the final lap of Saturday's Cabo Wabo 250 at Michigan International Speedway.
Sieg, who was driving the No. 28 Bailey Excavating Ford Mustang for his family's-owned RSS Racing team, said as he felt his car begin to drift into weightlessness, he clenched his eyes shut and hoped for the best as he lifted off to start the most frightening ride of his young racing career.
"I closed my eyes when I was about to flip upside down. Just tough. It's a scary ride," Sieg, a native of Tucker, GA, recalled after being checked and released from the infield care center. "I'm glad I'm alright. Knocked the wind out of me there. Just glad I'm alright."
In addition to getting the wind knocked out of him, Sieg also detailed that he suffered a slight injury to his right arm, but the driver is hoping it's nothing serious. The fact that Sieg was able to walk away from the wild crash nearly unscathed is not a miracle, it's a testament to the modern advancements in safety within the sport of NASCAR.
How did Sieg end up flipping to begin with?
Here it is! The wild finish to today’s Cabo Wabo 250 at Michigan. Thankfully, Kyle Sieg walked away from this wild ride, where he flipped, and hit the inside wall while upside down. pic.twitter.com/c0kYfzwFNR
— Toby Christie (@Toby_Christie) August 17, 2024
On the final lap of an overtime finish attempt, trouble broke out in front of Sieg, and a thundering pack of ruthless drivers with their feet glued to the floorboard. It appears from the replay that Parker Kligerman, the driver of the No. 48 Big Machine Racing Chevrolet Camaro, gave a bump draft to Caesar Bacarella in the No. 45 Alpha Prime Racing Chevrolet Camaro, which got Bacarella's car squirrely.
That bump sent Bacarella to the inside and into the No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro driven by 21-year-old Carson Kvapil. As Kvapil began to spin to the inside of the track, the field behind him stacked up as drivers attempted to slow down to avoid the unfolding crash ahead of them. It was at this point that Sieg felt a tap from a competitor from behind, which sent him flying, literally.
"I was on the backstretch like I said, I was behind [Kligerman] and I don't know. We were all pushing and [Bacarella] got out of control. [Leland Honeyman] just -- I don't know, I hit [Kligerman] and then [Honeyman] I guess just never lifted," Sieg stated.
As Sieg veered to the left, he collected the No. 81 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota GR Supra, driven by Chandler Smith. As the two cars barreled toward the inside of the track, Sieg's car turned backward. Then, Smith's car made one last subtle tap to Sieg's No. 28 machine. That was the final blow that gave Sieg's car the lift-off it needed. In an instant, Sieg's No. 28 machine performed a pirouette in the air before it came back down hard on its lid.
Sieg's car would pound the inside wall with the passenger side door, while upside down. The car then skidded out of control mimicking one of those old plastic tops that we all spun as children. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Sieg's car flipped back onto its wheels as his car dug into the infield grass in Turn 3.
Sieg had just resigned to the fact that his car was probably going to rest upside down, which would have led to safety crews needing to perform measures to extract him from the car. Fortunately, the car flipped, which allowed Sieg to exit the car as swift as possible.
"It's just, when I was rolling upside down, I was hoping it was going to stop. I thought I was going to land upside down, but luckily it just ended up right," Sieg said.
At the end of all of the Mayhem, Sieg was credited with a 28th-place finish. It was an ending that was as disappointing as it was scary for Sieg as he had been having one of the better races of his 69-race NASCAR Xfinity Series career. While his older brother Ryan Sieg scored the Stage 1 win and went on to finish 13th, the younger Sieg had also scored three Stage Points of his own on the day and was running 14th on the final lap when all hell broke loose.
"It was shaping up to be a good finish there for me," Sieg said disappointingly. "We got some Stage Points in Stage 1 and I was just hoping we could have a good finish. You know how the green-white-checkers go. Pretty much going to get destroyed, but that's what really happened."
Now, Sieg, as racecar drivers do, will dust himself off, and prepare for next weekend's NASCAR Xfinity Series Wawa 250 at Daytona International Speedway, a track more known for high-flying crashes than Michigan is. And guess what, he'll do it without fear of flying through the air floating around in his head. While racing has increased in safety in recent years, race car drivers are still modern-day gladiators. We average mortals think twice about getting behind the wheel in the days and weeks after a simple fender bender at a stop sign in a residential neighborhood.
Race car drivers are simply wired differently.
TOBY CHRISTIE