Madison, Ill. ? Scott Riggs raced to his third Busch Series victory Saturday, taking the Charter Pipeline 250 when Mike Bliss ran out of fuel on the final lap.

“Never give up! Never give up!” Riggs shouted as he climbed out of his car. “We’ve lost them this way before, but this is the first time I’ve had to win this way.

“I thought we had another second-place today. I couldn’t believe he ran out of fuel.”

The Ford driver was about three seconds behind the leader when Bliss slowed between the first and second turns on the 1.25-mile Gateway International Raceway track.

“They kept telling me to conserve gas, conserve gas,” Riggs said. “He had the car to beat.”

Bliss, who ended up 12th, made his last pit stop on lap 108 after a crash involving six cars. The 2002 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion thought he had more than enough fuel to complete the final 93 laps of the 200-lap race.

“It’s frustrating,” Bliss said “We had this race won. We had until (lap) 210 to run on fuel. I don’t know what happened, but we shouldn’t have run out of fuel.”

David Green finished second, 0.543 seconds behind Riggs, to take a five-point lead over Todd Bodine in the season standings. Bodine was 11th Saturday after starting from the back of the field because of an engine change.

Jason Keller finished third, followed by Brian Vickers, Bobby Hamilton Jr., Stacy Compton, Johnny Sauter, Scott Wimmer, Stanton Barrett and Winston Cup regular Kenny Wallace.

Pole-sitter Ashton Lewis Jr. led the first 44 laps, but got caught up in the six-car accident on lap 108. He finished 33rd.

The race was delayed 30 minutes because of rain.