KANNAPOLIS, N.C. — Tony Stewart says it’s been so long since he’s driven a NASCAR Xfinity Series car that he’s not sure how much help he’d be able to offer to Cole Custer, the full-time driver for Stewart-Haas Racing’s flagship Xfinity team.
At least now, Stewart says, the lines of communication for any potential advice are far more open that they used to be.
“That’s the great thing about Cole is that he’s coming out of his shell finally,” Stewart says. “I mean, for the first two years that I’d met this kid, he never said one word to me. I didn’t even know that he could speak. As time’s gone on now, he’s coming into his own, but it’s kind of that way with his racing, too. … We really don’t talk a lot about it. I mean, he does a really good job on his own. I almost feel like if I get in the middle of it, I’m only going to confuse him more than anything because the progress he’s making is good the way that he’s doing it.”
The 20-year-old driver’s shy streak may still be part of his personality, but Custer has shown signs of opening up — both with his interactions and his performance on the track. The California native sits fourth in the Xfinity Series standings ahead of Saturday’s U.S. Cellular 250 (5:20 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Iowa Speedway.
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Custer leads the Xfinity tour this season with four pole positions, and he ranks as second-best in top-five finishes with seven and top-10 finishes with 14 in the 18 races thus far. But he’s missing a tally in the win column, a void he’s aiming to fill with eight events remaining in the regular season.
“I think right now we’re fairly happy with where we’re at. I mean, we want to win races obviously and we need to catch up with the 20 and 22 guys,” Custer said, making mention of Joe Gibbs Racing and Team Penske entries that have accounted for seven Xfinity wins this year. “They’re fast and they’re leading laps every weekend. I think we can get there, we’re just going to have to dig a little bit deeper.
“Obviously I think we’re living in the top five right now, we just have to have everything kind of fall into place and have it be our weekend. I’m looking forward to the rest of the season, and I think we can make it happen.”
At the mild risk of looking too far ahead, Custer says the No. 00 Ford team is already making preparations to fine-tune its program ahead of the Xfinity Series’ seven-race playoffs, which open Sept. 21 at Richmond Raceway. They’ll have a year of postseason experience to draw upon, having come tantalizingly close to the final round in 2017.
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Had Custer & Co. kept their championship eligibility until the end — a berth he missed by just four points in the penultimate race — an Xfinity crown was well within their grasp. Custer played spoiler in the Homestead-Miami finale, capping his rookie season by leading 182 of 200 laps for his first Xfinity win.
Even with the title near-miss, the accomplishments placed Custer in elite territory in just the first season of Stewart-Haas Racing’s Xfinity operation. That growth has continued this year, strengthened by a partnership with Biagi-DenBeste Racing.
“I mean, to bring a rookie crew chief and a rookie driver into the series and do what they did last year and then see how it keeps progressing this year, I think everything’s moving along great,” Stewart says. “Obviously, we’ve had a partnership come on board in the last year and I think we’re really happy with the direction that the program’s going. In such a short amount of time to build it to what it is, it kind of follows suit with what we’ve done with the Cup program, so I think the sky’s the limit with it.”
As timelines go, SHR’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series program is celebrating its 10th anniversary in style. Kevin Harvick is fresh from his series-best sixth win of 2018, and teammate Clint Bowyer has visited Victory Lane twice this season. Kurt Busch and Aric Almirola have yet to break through for a checkered flag this year, but their consistency has placed both drivers among the front-running contenders most weeks.
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That sort of performance has trickled down to the Xfinity level at SHR, with a more vocal Custer front and center.
“Obviously, the morale gets up because we’re all one team,” Custer says. “Everybody’s winning, but we obviously want to do our part and start winning also. So it brings our level up, I feel like. We want to match their level, so I think it definitely helps the whole organization and obviously we share a little bit back and forth, so I think it’s a good thing for everybody.”