A rare trip up to South Boston Speedway for Layne Riggs also saw him pilot a different ride.
Rather than take his familiar No. 99 Puryear Tank Lines Ford to the facility, Riggs strapped into Camden Gullie’s second car for two 50-lap Late Model Stock features on Saturday evening.
Although Riggs did not anticipate being in contention for the win in either race, he enjoyed the opportunity provide by Gullie to turn a few extra laps at South Boston.
“[The Gullies] offered to pay for everything so I could have a little bit of fun driving around,” Riggs said. “It was an older car that had an older crate motor in it, so it was down about 75 horsepower but I wanted to see what I could do with it.”
Along with Riggs’ car being older than many others in the field, he and Gullie discovered after the two features that a broken rear end was also hindering the performance of his No. 51.
Riggs overcame the issues on his car and managed to salvage a solid ninth place lead lap finish in the first race for Gullie. He decided to save Gullie’s backup Late Model Stock by parking it a few laps into the second feature.
The evening was quiet and uneventful like Riggs planned for it to be, as he purposefully kept his intentions of racing at South Boston with Gullie quiet on social media knowing that he was more than likely not going to win.
Despite this, Riggs said that spending time with Gullie was more than valuable and hopes that making laps with his organization is beneficial towards turning around an inconsistent 2021 season.
“It’s always a good thing for a driver to climb into different equipment,” Riggs said. “About 99 percent of laps I’ve made on the track have been in my own car. Getting to talk to a different crew chief and work with different people widened my knowledge and I know that’s going to help me in the future.”
Although Riggs has a victory at Ace Speedway to go along with Top 5s at Dillon Motor Speedway and Langley Speedway, every other CARS Late Model Stock Car Tour finish for him has been 15th or worse.
Every adjustment implemented by Riggs and his team following their Ace victory have been futile in making his Late Model Stock more competitive. The struggles of the program have left Riggs 10th in CARS Tour points with six races remaining.
Having won six CARS Tour races before turning 20, Riggs knows he is more than capable of being a championship contender and hopes that going back to basics with his setups will help him finish out 2021 strong.
Riggs added that the increased parity in the CARS Tour has made winning much harder compared to recent years but he plans to race as much as possible over the next several months so he gain an edge over his competition again.
“The CARS Tour gets tighter and tighter every race,” Riggs said. “If you’re a tenth off the pole, you’re not even inside the Top 10 in qualifying. Ace has a race next Friday night that’s a prelude to the Rodney Cook Classic, so we’re going to go there and try to get our confidence back up a little bit.”
While Riggs has not ruled out the possibility of racing for Gullie again, he believes a busy schedule that includes taking college courses will likely limit him on the events he can run outside of the CARS Tour.
Riggs was grateful to assist another local driver in Gullie and is optimistic that the experience of driving for another program will enable him to add several more wins in his own car this year.
Read more Short Track Scene:
