Riley Herbst Endures Cool Suit Failure, Finishes 6th in Nashville

Lebanon, Tenn. – On a day with temperatures in the 90s, Riley Herbst encountered a massive hurdle in his NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Nashville Superspeedway on Saturday (June 29): his cool suit failed.

He still finished sixth.

“It was really hot,” Herbst told media members after the race. “Vision got blurry. It was extremely hot. My feet got hot, just a miserable day. We fought all the way through so I’m just proud of that and proud of my guys for making my racecar better. Should’ve had a top five but [got] a top 10.”

Starting ninth, Herbst immediately knew something was awry. The problem did not get better. And he had 188 laps to drive on the 1.33-mile concrete track.

“I don’t feel burned, but yeah, on the grid it made a weird noise,” he added. “It clunked a little bit. I thought, ‘What were we going to do when we were rolling off?’ We kept going and I just felt it get hotter and hotter and hotter. So I made the executive decision to unplug it. That’s a risk, because you can’t plug it back in, so 100% decision. And we did and stage two was the hardest. That’s when got a little spotty vision. But cold water in the car and the ice got us through.”

Mind you, Herbst finished seventh and 10th in the first two stages, respectively. Imagine driving in 100-plus-degree heat inside the car, competing at high speeds with hot water on you as your cool layer isn’t cooling you off and still running up front. That’s what Herbst did for the first 90 laps of the race.

At the end of stage two, before pit road opened, Herbst pitted to receive ice packs and cold water to drink and his team blew air into the car to try to cool him off.

It made a difference.

Even though he restarted at the tail end of the field, and 23 drivers finished on the lead lap, Herbst drove back toward the front again.

While he didn’t go to victory lane, he accrued 36 points and stayed eighth in the playoff standings, 103 above the cut line.

“Yeah we gained in the playoffs,” he continued. “Got points. I’m proud of that. I feel like we are a Championship 4-caliber speed when we execute and we’ve shown that.

Again, Herbst accomplished all this in extreme heat. To boot, Herbst is set to compete in the NASCAR Cup Series race at Nashville on Sunday with very similar expected temperatures and heat indexes.

“Hopefully go to the infield care center, get some fluid and go to sleep in 30 minutes,” he said about his plan to recover for the Cup race. “Hop in a Cup car for 400 miles and try to go learn. That’s the goal tomorrow and make all the laps, hopefully, finish on the lead lap and go out and learn.”

Herbst will have a different cool suit for the Cup race, noting, “I’m going to give both [his one from his Xfinity race and his Cup one] shirts to Rick Ware guys and have them make sure they both work. I don’t think it was the suit [malfunctioning but something else].”

Herbst will start the Cup race deep in the field in 30th. Compared to most Cup regulars who didn’t compete in the NXS race, Herbst has his work cut out for him. He didn’t seem more fazed about that, though.

“Right now I’m at a deficit but the Cup cars are significantly colder than the one right there.”