SAN DIEGO — Long retired marine Al Niece sat on top of his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series team’s pit box during the closing laps of NASCAR’s inaugural race at the Coronado Naval Base.
Niece, owner of the successful Niece Motorsports, was experiencing a homecoming day, as Coronado was the same base he once served on 58 years ago.
What was making it even better, however, was one of his trucks was leading the race with one lap to go.
Tyler Reif, a 19-year-old racing prospect, was in one of the toughest battles of his racing career as he held off hard-charging Truck veteran Layne Riggs. With one lap to go, Reif repelled Riggs in the hardest of corners as the No. 34 Ford was inches away, keeping up the pressure.
But in heartbreaking fashion, Reif locked up the brakes in the final chicane of the course and cut it. According to the NASCAR rulebook, he parked the truck for a moment and continued afterward. He finished 19th, nowhere near indicative of the performance he put on.
“I just kind of just drove over my head, right?” Reif told media post-race. “I’ve never been in that position. I’ve never been so excited in my life, and for the past month, I’ve been manifesting this, and I threw it away there at the end. I hit that corner 50 times perfect. I was one of the best cars through there all night, and then I missed it on the last lap because I let my head give it to me.”
Team owner Niece immediately approached the forlorn Reif and put his arm around him in consolation. Regardless of where he finished, he was proud of his driver.
“At the first stage we were eighth, ninth, 10th, and we were driving up front and we started having some bad luck,” Niece told Frontstretch. “But my God, that last lap, unbelievable, and the kid is just devastated. I mean there’s nothing more that he could have done.”
Reif echoed what Niece told him.
“Al just says, ‘Keep your head down. That was badass. There’s many more to come,'” Reif said.
It wasn’t all a loss, however. Landen Lewis, one of the team’s other drivers, avoiding the chaos of the final laps to place fourth. It’s the first top-five finish of his career.
“We had to grind it out,” Lewis told media post-race. “Put myself in a hole after qualifying and hit the wall. Had to crawl our way to the front. Finally got there at the end. … We just don’t have any quit. They want to win just as much as I do.”
Niece, the humble team owner, had nothing but good things to say about his 20-year-old driver.
“He’s a go-getter,” Niece told media. “He finishes better than he should some of these races. Seems like the last 10 laps, he had a good grind. … He’s got all the talent in the world or he wouldn’t be in this position.”
It may not have been the win Niece was hoping for with one lap to go, but while he had to wait 58 years for his return to Coronado, it was still a welcome one.
After all, as Niece put it; once a marine, always a marine.
“We had some good trucks here competing against some good drivers and some good teams.
“And I think we showed that Niece is still there.”
Dalton Hopkins began writing for Frontstretch in April 2021. Currently, he is the lead writer for the weekly Thinkin' Out Loud column, co-host of the Frontstretch Happy Hour podcast, and one of our lead reporters. Beforehand, he wrote for IMSA shortly after graduating from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2019. Simultaneously, he also serves as a Captain in the US Army.
Follow Dalton on Twitter @PitLaneCPT
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