DARLINGTON, S.C.: From the green flag drop in Saturday afternoon’s Crown Royal Purple Bag Project 200 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, it appeared that the NASCAR Xfinity Series field would be chasing Cole Custer for the win.
Then came the competition caution at Lap 20, and the race complexity changed completely.
During a routine pit stop, Custer’s team encountered a significant setback.
A lug nut became lodged in the gun, causing a delay that cost the Stewart-Haas Racing team valuable seconds on pit road. This unfortunate incident not only dashed Custer’s hopes of contending for his first Xfinity Series win of the 2024 season but also highlighted the unpredictable nature of NASCAR racing.
Before the race returned to competition on Lap 26, Custer brought his Johnny Sauter throwback Ford Mustang back to pit road, where the team ensured all the lug nuts were tight.
When the race resumed, Custer found himself at the back of the field in the 33rd position, despite a fast race car, traffic and varying aerodynamic conditions in dirty combated his attempt to soar back into contention.
It wasn’t until Stage 3 that Custer finally had enough track position to make noise. When the final caution of the race was waved on Lap 123 for Kyle Sieg’s spin in Turn 2, the lead pack was sent to pit road for their “money stop.”
Custer returned to the race inside the top-five and with the restart with 15 laps, the reigning Xfinity Series champion had to battle an army of Chevrolet Camaros around him to challenge for his first win of the season.
Overtaking Sam Mayer on the restart, Custer ran out of laps to chase down eventual winner Justin Allgaier and second-place runner Austin Hill to finish third, 4.194 seconds behind.
Custer posted his ninth consecutive top-10 finish on Saturday afternoon or his third top-five finish in the last four races.
“It was really tough to keep the tires under it,” said Custer after the race. “You had to really be patient the first few laps, but I’m just frustrated.”
After the race, Custer praised his pit crew for putting himself back in contention despite the early race hiccup.
“We had such a fast car with a three-second lead before that comp yellow and just lost our track position. That happens on pit road. That’s part of it, but it’s frustrating. We’ve been so fast and just haven’t had everything go right. Our guys are doing such a great job bringing fast cars to the race track.
“Our pit stops are awesome, but we just need everything to go right because once we got back in traffic, we just didn’t adjust on it, probably how we needed to.”
The 13-time Xfinity Series winner vowed to continue to fight and look for an overdue visit to Victory Lane.
“It took us until the end of the race to get it back to where we needed it to be, but I can’t thank Haas Automation and Gene Haas and everybody at SHR for bringing such fast cars. I’m just so frustrated we’re not in victory lane yet, but we’ll keep fighting.”
With 40 percent of the regular season complete, Custer remains second in the championship standings, just three points behind Austin Hill.
Custer and the Xfinity Series regulars take a weekend off before returning to action at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway on Sat., May 25.
Follow Chris Knight on X (Twitter) @Knighter01 or email at [email protected].
