“It’s about leaving the bad luck behind us”: Riley Herbst hoping to bounce back and clinch the final Xfinity play off spot in Kansas

The driver of the #98 Ford Mustang fielded by Stewart-Haas Racing in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, Riley Herbst is yet another driver sitting on the edge of elimination. With the postseason playoffs in full swing in all three nationwide series of stock car racing, every driver can be seen switching to a perform and advance mentality as the race for the titles in each series heats up.

Sitting in P10 on the driver's standings table with a one-point lead over fellow driver Parker Kligerman, Herbst heads into the race at Kansas Speedway this weekend with a do-or-die mentality. A victory at the 1.5-mile-long intermediate track could set up either driver for the next round of the playoffs. However, if neither manages to win, it could be a points game between the two.

Looking to play on both sides of the coin this Saturday, Riley Herbst has his focus set first on winning, and if not winning, scoring more points than Kligerman. He elaborated on his approach to motorsport.com:

“Kansas is probably one of my favorite intermediate tracks just because I have some solid history there in Trucks and ARCA, even in the Xfinity Series, we’ve been decent there. We’ve had fast Fords each and every week, so now it’s just about leaving the bad luck behind us and making no mistakes. I want to be able to park in Victory Lane, and Kansas seems like a good place to do it.”

Riley Herbst will hope to try and secure the next round during the Kansas Lottery 200 this Saturday.

Riley Herbst elaborates on how he aims to move up the points table

Sitting at the top of the driver's standings at one point during the 2023 season, Riley Herbst has had a string of bad luck which has caused him to be on the elimination cut-line come Kansas weekend.

Elaborating in an interview with frontstretch.com after last weekend's race, the young 24-year-old driver laid out his plans to get back to the same position and said:

"You have to look back, it's been a long year but at Richmond, we were the points leader and we got to continue to do what got us there and that was finishing races, getting good stage points, and leading laps."

The Kansas Lottery 200 goes live from the 1.5-mile-long Kansas Speedway this Friday, September 8, 2023, at 9 pm ET.