Scott Riggs is 22nd in the standings headed to Kansas. Credit: Autostock

Riggs has made his point after starting in the hole

Evernham driver sits 22nd in points despite missing season opener

When I walked into the MB2 Motorsports shop in January of this year, I was appalled at the sheer volume of wrecked racecars the team had in its 120,000-square-foot shop.

There were torn-up No. 10 Chevrolets everywhere. They were the former cars of Scott Riggs, who crashed hard at least four times in the second half of 2005.

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A lot of people wondered why Ray Evernham would bother putting a serial crasher like Riggs in his high-profile third car. When Riggs announced in August 2005 that he was leaving MB2, he was 26th in the standings. After a late-season free-fall, he ended the season in 34th.

It was hardly impressive stuff.

One columnist wrote that Riggs would have the same crash-filled results in 2006, especially with unproven crew chief Rodney Childers. To me, Childers was best known by the way Riggs, a native North Carolinian, said his name.

He drawled it "Chil-dress." That is just the way Riggs is. He is endlessly entertaining even in the droned world of NASCAR.

In one post-race TV interview, he once sarcastically called Ron Hornaday "the king of restarts" while using his hands to imitate quote signs.

When Riggs arrived at Evernham in the winter of 2005 to begin testing its cars for this season, he surprised a lot of people with his raw ability to go fast. His team saw right away that Riggs could get around the track as well as Kasey Kahne, and it was a major eye-opener.

Of course, all that momentum crashed when a gear failure kept him out of the Daytona 500.

	Scott Riggs was nine positions lower in the standings this time last year. Credit: Autostock
	Inside the Numbers Scott Riggs through 28 races   2005 2006 Wins 0 0 Top-5s 2 1 Top-10s 4 7 Poles 1 1 Avg. Start 16.9 20.2 Avg. Finish 25.5 19.6 DNFs 3 1 Laps Led 18 91 Rank 31 22

Riggs almost missed Las Vegas two weeks later when a stuck throttle during qualifying threatened to ruin his lap. Instead, Riggs qualified 22nd while driving the car hammer-down, with only his brakes keeping him from a wipeout.

Since that stressful opener, Riggs has slowly improved.

Trivia question: Which driver leads all non-Chase drivers with 21 lead-lap finishes?

Obviously, the answer is Riggs, or I never would have asked the question.

He has 21 lead-lap finishes, the same as Kahne, and obviously with one fewer start.

It's more than Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart, who have won three of the last four Nextel Cup titles.

The team loves him. Riggs is animated in the weekly engineer meetings and very loyal to Childers even when the latter was struggling in his first year as a crew chief.

Despite their struggles with MB2, Riggs brought Childers to Evernham, and the two have matured quickly.

The biggest improvements for Riggs has occurred on the tracks were driver skill is at a premium. Jeff Gordon seemed surprised to be racing Riggs for position at Bristol last month, which is only a compliment to Riggs' improvement.

It is premature to call Riggs a Chase contender for next season. He still makes mistakes -- he missed a shift in qualifying last week, costing him a chance to run well at a difficult track.

But it will be interesting to see how well he does next year when he is able to run all 36 races.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.