The wild, aggressive nature of last Friday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Daytona International Speedway didn’t bode well for two-thirds of the series’ so-called ‘Big 3’.
Christopher Bell steered clear of major trouble to finish third, but series leader Tyler Reddick cut a tire in the late going and ran 16th. Cole Custer fared even worse; his No. 00 Ford was the victim of three wrecks and ultimately crashed out in 26th place.
The aftermath of the chaos left Reddick, the reigning series champion, with a 76-point lead over Bell in second place and an 81-point edge over Custer in third.
In Friday’s Alsco 300 at Kentucky Speedway (7:30 p.m. on NBCSN, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), the series’ three top drivers are likely to reassert themselves.
Custer won the most recent race at a 1.5-mile intermediate speedway, picking up his fourth win of the season at Chicagoland. Bell, also a four-time winner this season, is the defending champion of this race. Reddick, the most consistent of the three with 13 top 10s in 16 starts, won at Kentucky in 2017.
Custer’s crew chief, Mike Shiplett, guided Reddick to victory with Chip Ganassi Racing in 2017 and last year finished seventh with John Hunter Nemechek before moving to Custer’s Stewart-Haas Racing car this year.
“With Shiplett’s record, especially the last couple of years at Kentucky, it definitely provides a good amount of confidence that we will have a good car when we unload this weekend,” said Custer, who has finished fifth in his last two Kentucky starts. “I think we have shown that we are good at every type of track we have been to this year, but 1.5-mile tracks seem to really showcase our strength and how well SHR builds cars for these types of tracks.
“I look forward to getting to the track and showing what we have this weekend, and hopefully we can keep our top-five streak at Kentucky alive from 2017 and 2018.”
Source: Reid Spencer | NASCAR Wire Service
