Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series (NCS)
Tuesday, August 25, 2020
Cole Custer, driver of the No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang, is coming off a 10th-place finish in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Dover International Speedway. Custer extended his stay at the Monster Mile to take part in a two-day test of NASCAR’s Next Gen car, which will be debuting in the 2022 season. Here is a transcript of today’s Ford Zoom call.
COLE CUSTER, No. 41 HaasTooling Ford Mustang – WHAT’S THE FEELING AROUND THE TEAM THAT IT LOOKS LIKE ALL FOUR CARS WILL MAKE THE PLAYOFFS? “Honestly, it’s unbelievable. I think that’s every organization’s dream to have all four cars in the playoffs, so it’s a huge deal. Everybody at SHR has worked extremely hard. I mean, even from last year I think everybody wanted to see us run a little bit better with the 550 package and I think they did a great job of figuring it out and trying to find ways to make us better and get us going in the right direction. So, it’s just a testament to everybody at the shop and all the hard work everybody has put in and now we just have to take advantage of the opportunity.”
HOW IS THE NEXT GEN TEST GOING AND HOW DOES IT COMPARE TO WHAT YOU DROVE OVER THE WEEKEND? “Right now, I’m wore the hell out (laughing). We’ve surpassed 1,000 miles in four days at Dover and it’s probably the toughest track for that physically. Overall, I think the biggest difference is probably the steering. Obviously, we run steering boxes right now in our cars and these cars have rack and pinion steering, so, overall, it’s usually a little bit easier to steer. The wheel is a little bit lighter, less effort to give, but at the same time whenever you hit a bump or whenever it loads up and the front tires or anything kind of changes in the load, it makes it so the wheel wants to kind of rip out of your hands, so at first it wasn’t a big deal, but now that I’ve been doing it four days in a row, it’s starting rip the wheel out of my hands, so it’s getting a little bit tough.”
BRISCOE AND CINDRIC ARE DOMINATING THE XFINITY SERIES THIS YEAR. WHAT’S IT LIKE FOR A DRIVER TO FINALLY GET TO THAT NEXT LEVEL LIKE THEY ARE NOW? “I think it just shows that it takes a little bit of time. There’s a lot of things to learn with these cars and what you want for a long run and what you want in your car for a setup, and just what works for you and how you need to work the gas and brake. These cars are definitely a little bit different, so once that all starts to click, then it’s just a matter of not making the mistakes and having clean races. I think those guys have started to figure that out, so it just takes a little bit of time and I think you can show that you can win races at that level and you can win a lot of them. I think it definitely shows that you can compete at the Cup level.”
ANY SENSE IF YOU’LL BE ABLE TO PASS WITH THE NEXT GEN? AND DO YOU HAVE THE SAME ENGINE AND HAVE YOU CHANGED SPOILERS OR SPLITTERS YET? “Not yet. Right now, for the most part what the package is right now is the 750 motor with maybe a little bit more downforce that what we run usually with the 750 cars – just a little bit more. Right now, honestly, I think the first few tests the biggest thing was just working the bugs out and finding from track to track what was gonna be the major issues. So now I feel like we have all the bugs worked out and you can go run competitive lap times and now we’re just trying to figure out what makes it generally setup-wise what’s gonna make it go faster, what’s gonna make it gain lap time and what’s gonna be best for the long run. Right now we’re just trying to knock out big picture things setup-wise, but, overall, I feel like it’s too early to tell how it’s gonna work in traffic. We’re too early in the going I feel like right now, so that’s gonna come a little bit later on. There’s nothing that jumps out at me that’s totally bad or totally good, either. It’s just a matter of trying to figure out what’s gonna make it good setup-wise and what’s gonna make it go faster.”
ARE YOUR SPEEDS COMPARABLE TO THE WEEKEND? “Yeah, they are. I think the fastest we’ve gone is a 23.8, and I think in clean air you can go about the mid to high 23’s, so I feel like we’re close. There’s a lot of differences in how the car travels. There’s a lot more travel in the car, so it’s a lot higher up on the straightaways, so it’s just trying to control that and figure out the best ways to go about it.”
YOU ARE THE ONLY ROOKIE IN THE PLAYOFFS RIGHT NOW. IF NO OTHER ROOKIE MAKES IT IN, YOU WILL BE THE ROOKIE OF THE YEAR. HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE IN THIS POSITION? “It’s really cool. Honestly, I think it was cool to have the rookie battle this year. We had a lot of good guys in there with me, Tyler, Christopher and John Hunter. It was a really good rookie class. It’s still not over because obviously somebody could make the playoffs, but it would be really cool to have that title, but, overall, you’ve still got to find ways to make yourself better. There are some days Christopher is the fastest rookie, some days Tyler is and some days I am. John Hunter has done a really good job in their stuff too, so you’ve got to find ways every single race to try to make yourself better.”
HOW MUCH HAS TEAM MORALE GROWN SINCE THE KENTUCKY WIN? “Honestly, it’s been pretty game-changing. The start of the year was pretty rough for me especially, just trying to get a feel for the cars and to come home with that win it just took so much pressure off and I think it brought the morale up in our team and now it’s just a matter of trying to get back. We need to be fully focused going into the playoffs and make sure we’re 100 percent and try to make a run at it. We don’t just want to be a part of the playoffs, we want to be competitive.”
WHAT IS THE BIGGEST THINGS THAT HAS STOOD OUT SO FAR ABOUT THE NEXT GEN CAR? “The biggest thing is definitely the steering for me, and then also probably the tires feel a little bit different, just how they slip and how much you can get away with getting the car loose. It seems like with how the steering is and how the tires are you can’t really get away and how the aero is also, you can’t get away with driving the car sideways as much. It’s just little differences here and there, but probably the thing that stands out the most is the steering.”
DO YOU FEEL NASCAR IS GOING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION WITH THIS NEW CAR? “Yeah, I think right now it’s a matter of they’re trying to figure out all the suspension kind of components and how that’s all gonna work out. I think that’s all good to bring in independent suspension and different transmissions and stuff that’s more up to date with the technology today. I think that’s all good and I think it’s gonna come a little bit later on when we get multiple cars on the racetrack of how the aero is going to work. Right now, I have no idea how the aero is gonna work in traffic because I’m here by myself. That might come a little bit later on.”
HOW MIGHT THIS CAR CHANGE WHAT THE DRIVER NEEDS TO DO OR CERTAIN THINGS IN DRIVER TALENT? “That’s a tough question. Honestly, it hasn’t been a huge difference in this test. I’m driving the car fairly similar to how you drive Dover every single time you come here, so it hasn’t been a huge difference, it’s just what you can get away with. So it’s gonna be a matter of what drivers can get away with more, what driver can drive the car a little bit looser on the edge or what teams can figure out how to keep the cars turning without keeping them on edge. It’s gonna be interesting to see who can adapt to it the best, but, overall, it’s still the same kind of driving characteristics though, it’s just little differences.”
WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE SMT FOR HARVICK OR HAMLIN CAN YOU SEE HOW THEY’RE DOING WHAT THEY’RE DOING OR WONDERING HOW THEY’RE DOING IT? “I think the biggest thing is they’ve figured with their teams what works best for them with their cars and they can bring that to the racetrack every single weekend. I think Kevin, knowing what he has in his cars and knowing what he does from a driving standpoint, he’s absolutely amazing. I’m not gonna lie. He can do some stuff that I think a lot of people can’t and you’ve got to figure out for yourself what’s gonna make you be able to be aggressive on the short runs and have good long run speed, have good restarts, and you just have to figure out what works best for you to be aggressive with the car. I think Kevin can definitely get away with a lot of stuff and he can make some things work that some people can’t, but it’s a matter of trying to figure out what works best for you. I think we’ve shown that we can compete with those guys if we have everything go right and we have everything the way we want it, we just need to emulate it every single weekend.”
WITHOUT GIVING AWAY TRADE SECRETS WHAT IS SOMETHING KEVIN DOES THAT IS AMAZING FROM A DRIVER’S POINT OF VIEW THAT YOU SEE THAT I DON’T? “I’m not gonna give away any secrets. I’m not at liberty to say, but it is amazing to see what he can do with a race car. I’ll say that.”
HOW HAS THE NEXT GEN CAR DEALT WITH THE LOADS AT DOVER? WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED? “Honestly, we’ve had no problems and no mechanical failures or anything luckily for me, I guess. It would hurt a lot if I took a hit here at Dover, so I’m really thankful that everybody came here and did their homework so we had no failures because it definitely worked out better me. We’ve had a solid test. We’ve tried a lot of things and seen the good and bad, and it’s just a matter of going to different racetracks and seeing what the different problems are going to be. I think here at Dover we’ve had a solid test without many issues.”
DO YOU GET A SENSE OF HOW CLOSE THE FINAL VERSION OF THE NEXT GEN CAR MIGHT BE? “I would say they’ve worked the bugs out for the most part now. It’s just a matter of trying to go to all the different racetracks and figure out what the different bugs they have to work out at these different racetracks because every single one is gonna have their own kind of thing. So just the more that they can go to different racetracks and test, the better it’s gonna be. I think at this point, you can go out there and run laps and you can probably put some cars out there together, but the next stage is gonna find out aero-wise what they do in traffic and what’s gonna make them better or worse.”
