Custer Looks to Build on Recent Momentum
Fresh off a win at Kentucky Speedway last week, Cole Custer hopes to keep his best season going.
Christopher Bell, Custer, and Tyler Reddick have won 12 of the 17 races this year. The only other winners are Monster Energy Cup driver Kyle Busch three times, and Michael Annett and Ross Chastain at Daytona.
Custer noted the frequency of them finishing in the top three, and ideally can build a gap from the rest of the playoff field. Custer pointed to Justin Allgaier of JR Motorsports as a potential fourth driver to contend with since he makes the best of an off day.
Reddick is the defending champion through his win at Homestead-Miami. Bell and Custer were also part of the Championship 4 last year. Custer’s made the playoffs the last two years, finishing second last season while his team won the owners championship.
“It all comes down to one race at Homestead, so you never really know what you’re gonna have until there, but I think at this point you’re just trying to keep your own momentum up and try to get to Homestead,” Custer said. “We’re just trying to build as many Playoff points as possible and then from there when we get to Homestead we’ll settle it there.”
Veteran crew chief Mike Shiplett continues his record of improving race teams this season. While Shiplett hasn’t had a full XFINITY season with one driver before, he has had success with multiple drivers recently. He won 15 races working for Harry Scott, Jr. and Chip Ganassi since 2015 with Kyle Larson, Justin Marks, Tyler Reddick, Alex Bowman, Ross Chastain, and John Hunter Nemechek.
At Stewart-Haas Racing, the junior driver is experiencing his best XFINITY season, including wins in 2 of the last 3 races. He enters the Roxor 200 third in the standings with 5 wins, 11 top fives, and 12 top tens in 18 races. 4 poles, 5 wins, and 31 playoff points are the most by any driver this season.
“I think Mike Shiplett coming to our team was pretty huge and our engineer, Davin Restivo. I think how much experience Mike has and the ideas that they brought over here, so I think that was pretty huge and also it’s my third year, so I have a lot more experience on how to work traffic and how to work all the different scenarios through the weekend.”
The Ladera Ranch, California believes his third season brings maturity with improved feedback on what he wants from the car, and the knowledge of how the tracks change during the race. During races, Custer found focusing on himself improved his car instead of worrying what the leader was doing.
The flat, 1.058-mile oval is challenging for drivers. Custer emphasized, “rolling the center” was the key. He called the bumps entering turn 3 “very violent.”
“You’re always gonna be tight rolling the center, but that’s the main part of the corner here. What’s really important is the entry and exit, having those good so you can set yourself up good for the center. It’s a really technical race track and hard to get a hold of, but hopefully, I can figure it out this time.”
Custer is a previous winner at Loudon in K&N East (2013) and NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series (2014). Since his last win, he has not run as well. He has 1 top ten in 2 NGOTS starts. He finished 9th in his 2 XFINITY starts here.
“I feel like back then I had really fast cars, but I didn’t really understand the race track. I was just on the gas and that doesn’t really work in the XFINITY Series. You’ve got to know what’s going on and you’ve got to know how to work the track, so I feel like I have a lot better understanding of the track right now.”
By: Nicholas Teto, YankeeRacer.com
Sources: NASCAR
Racing-reference.info