Just days ago, Stewart-Haas Racing announced that Cole Custer will return to the Xfinity Series in 2024 — despite the team having an opening in its NASCAR Cup Series No. 10 car.
Custer must have taken that as bulletin board material, as he raced to the series championship on Saturday night.
Custer beat John Hunter Nemechek, Justin Allgaier and Sam Mayer in a thrilling finish in which the four title contenders were briefly four-wide for the race lead with a lap-and-a-half to go. He restarted in front but briefly fell back to third place before powering his way back to the top spot and driving away.
Though not as chaotic as Friday night’s Truck Series event, the Xfinity title race saw its fair share of drama. Custer had to hang on through multiple late restarts — including the last one with only two laps to go — after having the best car for much of the evening. Thankfully, all the title contenders raced each other clean this time and the best man won.
Custer, who drove SHR’s No. 41 Cup Series entry between 2020 and 2022, struggled to put up results at the top level in those three seasons. However, that has been proven to be more of a team issue than a driver issue, which was evident even before the 2023 season. It’s even more clear now, as his replacement Ryan Preece has also struggled in the same car.
With SHR’s Kevin Harvick and Aric Almirola both stepping away from full-time Cup competition after 2023, one would think Custer would be a primary candidate to replace one of them. Yet instead the team tabbed Josh Berry to replace Harvick and reportedly Noah Gragson will be replacing Almirola.
Berry was in this year’s Xfinity field and did not win a single race or qualify for the championship event. Gragson had a disastrous season in Cup both on and off the track. It’s hard to imagine either are better options than Custer.
Custer is very possibly better than 3/4 of SHR’s 2024 Cup Series lineup, assuming they do go with Gragson. Yet he’s forced to race on Saturdays instead of Sundays. Perhaps the team should have waited just a bit longer to assess its options.
Then again, maybe that’s for the better for Custer. As proven Saturday evening, he has a much better chance to win races and championships that way.