LONG POND, PA.: The frustrating sophomore NASCAR Cup Series season for Cole Custer continued for the Stewart-Haas Racing driver in Saturday afternoon’s Pocono Organics CBD 325.
After failing pre-race inspection twice on Saturday morning, last July’s Kentucky Speedway winner relinquished his 26th place starting position and lined up his No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang at the rear of the field for the first of two Cup races this weekend at the “Tricky Triangle.”
Custer made some early progress in the race and continued to inch forward, however, shortly after the first restart of the race, Custer’s race came to an abrupt end after contact from Brad Keselowski turned Custer into the outside wall.
The damage was significant to end Custer’s race after just 13 laps.
“Yeah, these restarts, you are trying to get up in those tight holes to make sure you don’t get freight trained by five cars on the straightaway,” said Custer. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen a replay. I don’t know if it was just too tight or miscommunication or what.”
Even with the rule infraction, the nine-time Xfinity Series winner was hopeful he could deliver his third top-10 of the season before suffering his third DNF (did not finish) of 2021.
“I really wanted a good day today,” added Custer. “I thought we had a good car those first few laps with our HaasTooling.com Mustang, but we will just move on to tomorrow.”
The Ladera Ranch, Calif. native entered the race mired 27th in the championship standings and suffering his second straight finish of 30th or worse, Custer will likely need to win before the end of August to propel him into a Playoff spot for the second straight Cup season.
“It is frustrating,” admitted Custer. “I can’t tell you how frustrating this year has been. We will just have to keep surging on and go to tomorrow.”
For the second consecutive season, Pocono is hosting two shortened Cup races on the same weekend.
Should the Stewart Haas Racing team unload the backup No. 41 Ford Mustang to utilize on Sunday, Custer will be penalized by NASCAR and have to start the Explore the Pocono Mountains 350 from the rear.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
