LEBANON, Tenn.: Cole Custer had a shot at winning his second NASCAR Xfinity Series race of the season in Saturday afternoon’s Tennessee Lottery 250, but a late race strategy didn’t pay off and instead left the Stewart-Haas Racing driver with a ninth-place finish at Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway.
It wasn’t just about the late-race strategy that left Custer uneasy in Music City.
Custer became agitated during Stage 3 after swiping the lead away from Kaulig Racing’s Chandler Smith to watch Smith’s teammate AJ Allmendinger who suffered damage to his No. 10 Chevrolet Camaro earlier in the race zoom by Custer’s No. 00 Haas Automation Ford Mustang and sailed into the race lead and eventually withstanding two overtime restarts to earn the race win.
When the caution waved inside the final five laps of the race, Custer was brought down pit road to put on a set of cooler tires in hopes that they would be better for traction for the restart compared to the hot and sticky four Goodyear tires that Custer was competing on.
Restarting the best among the lead lap cars that pitted, Custer restarted seventh but his opportunity to make gains was stalled after Chandler Smith spun at the exit of Turn 2.
Still shuffled in the bottom half of the top-10 for the second overtime, a chaotic restart and having to defend his position did not allow Custer to march forward but instead drop to ninth at the checkered flag, more than 2.5 seconds behind Allmendinger.
After the race, Custer wasn’t frustrated by the gutsy pit call for cooler tires, but rather the alleged advantage Allmendinger held over the rest of the field.
“I don’t really have anything good to say,” Custer said. “We worked our guts out to pass the 16 and pretty much get to the lead and he flies by us with his quarter panel all skewed out and probably 50 counts more downforce. You don’t stand a chance.
“So, it’s just frustrating when you work your guts out when you have a winning car. You should have won and finished ninth because you try and do a different strategy and it doesn’t work out.”
While upset with the circumstances surrounding Allmendinger’s car – because the Ladera Ranch, Calif. native felt the Cup invader took crucial Playoffs points away from his team, Custer still praised his Stewart-Haas Racing team for bringing him a fast race car and collecting their 10th top-10 finish of the season.
“It’s just super frustrating,” added Custer. “There’s not much good I can say except that we had a really fast No. 00 Haas Automation Ford Mustang. Man, it takes Playoff points away and just sucks. I don’t know. It shouldn’t be like that.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01 or email: [email protected]
