HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Cole Custer nearly had a perfect weekend at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) International Speedway.
The Stewart-Haas Racing driver was fast in practice, won the pole for the Ford EcoBoost 300 and dominated the first two stages of Saturday afternoon’s NASCAR Xfinity Series season finale, but a controversial pit strategy likely doomed Custer’s opportunity to not only win his third career race but the 2018 Xfinity Series title.
In a race that saw just two yellow flags for the end of stage breaks, teams were forced to make a green flag pit stop near the end of the 33rd race of the season. Championship 4 contender Christopher Bell first pitted on Lap 142 of 200. Tyler Reddick soon followed with Custer the last of the title contender to make his way to pit road on Lap 147.
Once the cycle of stops was completed, Custer found himself over five seconds in the arrears in fifth. Custer was able to pass John Hunter Nemechek for third with 40 laps remaining. With 36 laps to go, Custer moved into second and closed on Reddick.
While attempting to charge for the race led, Reddick took his race car to the high side with Custer trying to follow but couldn’t keep pace. Reddick cruised away to a 6.9 second victory ahead of Custer.
“I don’t know if looking back on it that was the right thing to do, but I think if I could have run the top better, we would have won also,” Custer said after the race. “We got so far behind and then once I caught him our tires kind of equaled out and started running the top and I couldn’t keep up with him. Congrats to Tyler.
“I’m happy for him. It’s frustrating, but I’ve just got to thank everybody at Haas Automation, Gene Haas, Tony Stewart, everybody that’s been behind us all year. We were really close it’s just sucks to be second.”
While Custer believed the team’s pit strategy may have been a contributing factor, the Ladera Ranch, Calif. native said he could not put his No. 00 Haas Automation Ford as high as Reddick did on the 1.5-mile track.
“The strategy wasn’t all of it. Tyler could just run the top better than I could at the end but looking back on it I don’t know if the call that we made, I think we would have rethought things, but you don’t want to be caught a lap down,” added Custer.
“There’s a lot of risk involved with pitting early, so it is what it is. If I could have run the top better, we probably would have won also.
“They (tires) weren’t done, it’s just that you reach a certain point on tires where everything just starts to level out and once I caught him I feel like everything just kind of leveled out and then he could run the top better than I could.”
Disappointed about not winning the Xfinity Series driver championship, Custer did bring SHR home the owner’s championship for owners Gene Haas and Tony Stewart.
In their post-race press conference, Stewart confirmed that Custer will return to the No. 00 in 2019 – setting the tone for the 20-year-old to chase another championship.
Custer also said putting himself into the Championship fight was good practice for the potential to do it again next November.
“It means a lot being through this scenario,” sounded Custer. “I thought we kept our calm all day. We did a great job it’s just that it didn’t play out right at the end.
“We still have something to hang our hats on. We still won the owner’s championship, which is really awesome, but I still wanted the driver’s one too.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
