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RACING
NEWS
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| Overseeing A Family Run Team | by Skip Wall
David Riggs still likes to oversee his shop resting in the Blue Ridge Parkway foothills of Martinsville VA, even after turning over the duties to his son.
David Riggs is one of the most respected men in the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour. Together with his son, Jeff, the Riggs' have had one of the best teams in the Whelen Soutern Modified world. They are a title contender at any track that they go to.
The Riggs have several championships and races under their belt, most coming with former driver Junior Miller who won the first two Whelen Southern Modified Tour championships in 2005 and 2006.
Miller decided to cut back on his schedule this year and parted ways with the Advance Auto Parts sponsored team.
With Jeff Riggs running most of the day to day operations, it gave David some time off. But the elder Riggs still piddled in the shop and went to some of Tour races in 2008.. He still builds engines in house, something that most other teams shop out to engine builders.
Riggs Racing brought in a new driver, Andy Seuss, a little known racer from up in the northern series modified country.
Seuss fit right in as he had run his own family team in the north. The Riggs family outfit has a ton of support and loyalty among friends in the Martinsville area who help make up the team. In fact, Riggs' wife, Margaret, along with Seuss' mom are very well known to have family meals put together for the team on race day. Jeff Rigg's daughter, Jessica, used to serve as team scorer until she had a baby.
Seuss shocked the Whelen Southern Modified Tour world when he was selected by the Riggs including former driver Miller. But Miller would say that he approved of his replacement as he found that Seuss was indeed a family man also. Seuss was picked over several drivers from the southern division. Some of those picked over even had sponsors to bring with them.
Seuss did bring to the table one Tour win at Nashville earlier last year.
Riggs and Seuss knew that it would be a long season as the team would need some seat time to feel each other out. The goal was to get as many top five finishes it could.
At the first outing at Ace Speedway, a little bullring in Altamahaw NC, the team wiped out a car on the first lap, after starting on the front row caused by another competitor not using his head.
Though upset, the team didn't get down, instead they packed up and went home to get ready for the next night's stop at Caraway Speedway in Asheboro NC. In doing so they had to wake up friends and even David Riggs had to work all night to make the Caraway race. The team brought out a race car that had been sitting on a carport that hadn't been raced in some time. It was sheer determination, family and team loyalty to make this work, which they did, arriving at Caraway by 2 p.m. on that Saturday.
The Riggs and Seuss team have had a so-so season until the last few events where Seuss has been coming on strong. They knew a win was just around the corner.
The team was taken back last week when David Riggs suffered a stroke. They didn't know when or how bad David was. However Jeff Riggs along with the team, decided that the team still needed to race at the fall finale at Caraway this past Saturday night.
David Riggs still has a long road to recovery. It starts this week as he will be going to rehabilitation to work on his speech.
At the Caraway event all eyes were on Brian Loftin, Tim Brown and L.W. Miller who were duking it out for the championship, along with Burt Myers who was serving a one race suspension.
It was a determined Seuss who stole the show when he won the fall finale. In fact he stunk up the show as he had pulled away from the field and led some 138 laps of the 150 lap event.
Seuss dedicated the win to David Riggs and the loyal Advance Auto Parts team. Together he couldn't have done it without them. Moreover the team called David Riggs while the car was in victory lane.
"It seems like it's been a long time since I won one of these Whelen Southern Modified Tour races," Seuss said. "It's been a long time since Riggs Racing has won a race so I'm just happy to win for them. They earned their money today because they worked hard from the start of they race all through qualifying. It was kind of like throwing calculated darts at the board."
"I'm just glad to get these guys back to victory lane because (team patriarch) David Riggs had a stroke earlier in the week so hopefully this will make him feel a little bit better." Seuss said.
The team has now gelled to where they feel that they can contend for next year's Whelen Southern Modifiied Tour championship run.
Their goal now is to help David Riggs in his rehabilitation so the whole loyal family and team can compete together. But what they dearly miss right now is the jolly man in the corner of the shop overseeing the operation.
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