RELATED: Full results | Relive the day in photos
CONCORD, N.C. — After a career-best fourth-place finish in the NASCAR XFINITY Series Hisense 4K TV 300, Cole Custer emerged from his No. 88 Chevrolet beet-red but satisfied with his result at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The 18-year-old earned a fist bump and congratulations from JR Motorsports teammate Justin Allgaier, among others.
“Really happy with where we ended up there,” Custer said. “Good call there at the end taking two tires and catching a little more track position. We were just able to make some things happen there on that last restart.
“Day didn’t start out that great. We got some damage on pit road but we were able to work our way back up there and ended up pretty well.”
Custer spent much of the latter half of the race running in the top 10, even leading a lap (his first in the series) and spent some time in the top five before starting to fade back to seventh.
A late caution from an accident involving Erik Jones on Lap 198 opened the door for some pit strategy to get back some track position. Crew chief Dave Elenz told NASCAR.com there was no doubt what call he had to make.
“We were doing two,” Elenz said on pit road after the race. “We were set on that. We had to get ahead of the 18 (eventual race winner Denny Hamlin, who restarted sixth on four fresh tires), so that was the only way we were going to do that. We actually were going to stay out if we could have gotten the front row, but that didn’t happen.”
Custer restarted in fifth on the third row with Hamlin, and the California native was able to gain one spot in the overtime finish.
The result builds off a sixth-place showing Custer had last month at Richmond International Raceway in his series debut. Custer has three more starts slated to come for JRM at Kentucky Speedway in the No. 88 (July 8), before returning to the No. 5 at Charlotte (Oct. 7) and Homestead-Miami Speedway (Nov. 19).
JR Motorsports teammate Allgaier has noticed what a quick study Custer is, and Custer admitted that he has picked the brain of veteran teammate Elliott Sadler a little bit. Allgaier said he enjoys having a rotating cast of drivers in the No. 88 Chevrolet that already has included Chase Elliott, Kevin Harvick, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Alex Bowman.
“I told Cole as soon as the race was over, he did a great job today,” said Allgaier, who finished fifth. “He was on it, no question, and those guys did a great job.
“I think as a company, when you get into that grind of going every week and pushing each other each and every week, it can be sometimes hard to race every week and to not get stale or stagnate. Having those guys come in and push us and we learn from them, I think it definitely helps the whole organization.”
And with two strong results on the board in the XFINITY Series, Custer is optimistic that the results and speed will carry over to his run at a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championship. The two-time winner in the series is in the midst of his first full-time season in the sport and sits 15th in the standings.
“We’ve definitely struggled some in the truck and we thought we were having more speed,” Custer said. “I think we are going to have some speed here coming up. I think we are working real hard on it with Joe (Shear Jr., crew chief of the No. 00 Chevrolet) and everybody, so I think we will definitely have some speed, but it definitely means a lot to know that I can still do it.”