COLE CUSTER, No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang — HOW DO YOU SEE THE CUP PLAYOFFS BEING DIFFERENT FROM LAST YEAR AND YOUR APPROACH TO THEM? “I think the biggest thing is that there’s just more competition. In the XFINITY Series you have probably five to six guys that can probably make it to Miami, where here there are probably 10-12 guys that could. It’s tough. You’ve got to be really competitive and you’ve got to beat a lot of good guys, but at the same time you don’t want to put yourself in a hole either, so there’s a lot to balance.”
WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE TO MAKE THE PLAYOFFS WITHOUT ANY EXPERTS HAVING YOU IN DURING THE PRESEASON? “It’s huge. I mean, I think we can go in there and prove some people wrong is the biggest thing, but at the end of the day it’s about being consistent and it’s about being competitive. I think we’ve had a lot of peaks and valleys at times this year, but at the same time we just need to try and level it out more going into these playoffs. If we can be consistent and we can put it all together and put all the pieces together for these last 10 races, I think we’ve shown that we can compete with anybody it’s just trying to put those pieces together every single race.”
ASIDE FROM YOU, WHO DO YOU THINK IS A DARKHORSE? “I think you can look at my teammate, Aric Almirola. They’ve been knocking on the door all year pretty much being consistent and it only takes one thing to go right and I think they can win some races, so I can definitely say that you can probably look at them a little bit.”
YOU ARE THE ROOKIE OF THE YEAR. DO YOU READ ANY OF THE STUFF ON TWITTER WHO FEEL YOU DON’T DESERVE IT? “I don’t know. I don’t make the rules (laughing). At the end of the day I guess we won, but I don’t know. I’m not the most confident guy out there that’s gonna say I’m better than all those guys. I know that all of us have been pretty competitive this year and I think we’ve all made big strides. It’s just a matter of we won at Kentucky. I don’t know what to tell you, so we were Rookie of the Year. It’s tough to swallow, I guess, for some people, but it is what it is. I’m gonna be proud of it and I think our team should be proud of it. I think we’ve shown that we can compete and we can have good finishes, so it’s just a matter of being consistent and putting it all together.”
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO WIN THAT AWARD? “It’s huge to be able to race against those guys. Tyler, Christopher, John Hunter, I think we all made huge strides this year and were all fairly competitive. It was definitely cool to be able to race these guys for the last 5-10 years and to move up to the Cup level together and have that battle still kind of going on was really cool.”
WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO GET AN AWARD OVER CHRISTOPHER OR TYLER, WHO WON CHAMPIONSHIPS IN OTHER SERIES? “It’s cool to win that. It’s one of those things you’re gonna look back in 5-10 years and say that was pretty cool to win because it was a really good rookie class and I think it’s cool. I don’t know what else to say about it, but it’s one of those things where it was competitive and I think for us to come out on top of it is definitely something to be proud of.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON LAYING THE BUMPER TO SOMEBODY, IF NECESSARY, DURING THE PLAYOFFS? “I think he put it about right. You’re not gonna do it every single lap and every single time in the race. You’ve got to do it at the right time, but if it’s gonna move you to the next round or it’s what you need to do to make your team move forward, it’s what you’ve got to do. I don’t want to be wrecking people. I think, for me, you want to move them out of the way cleanly. I don’t think you want to just start wrecking people, but it’s something where you’ve got to do what’s best for your team.”
HOW OFTEN WILL YOU LEAN ON YOUR TEAMMATES, ESPECIALLY KEVIN, IN THE PLAYOFFS? “Kevin has been a huge help to me this year. I’ve tried to talk with him pretty much every single weekend to try to get an idea of what to expect going into the races. He’s definitely been a huge help. At the same time, I think you’ve got to make your own path at times and you have to have your own ideas because sometimes you’re just gonna confuse yourself having a lot of different people talking in your ear. I have some great teammates at Stewart-Haas Racing and we all obviously made the playoffs and that’s a huge deal for our organization. I think we have a great team that can work great together and share info and it’s just a dream come true, I guess, to have those kinds of teammates.”
IS YOUR CONFIDENCE HIGH IN THIS FIRST ROUND SINCE THERE ARE SOME TRACKS YOU’VE WON AT BEFORE IN XFINITY? “I think so, for sure, but at the same time you’ve got to make sure you’re doing your homework before the races and going in there 100 percent. There are a lot of things that can go wrong in the playoffs. I think we’ve seen that in the past, so it’s a matter of trying to make sure you don’t put yourself in a hole is one of the biggest things. You’ve got to run competitively, that’s for sure, but you don’t want to be one of those guys that has to be desperate going into the final race.”
WHO HAS GIVEN YOU THE BEST ADVICE OUTSIDE OF SHR IN THIS PLAYOFF PROCESS? “I think I lean on my crew chief, Mike Shiplett, a lot. He’s been a huge help over the past two years of being a really calm guy that can give you a lot of advice on a lot of different things. He’s definitely pointed me in the right direction a lot of times. I think going in these playoffs it’s just a matter of taking it one step at a time and you do enough things right, you’re gonna find yourself in a good position.”
HAS TONY STEWART GIVEN YOU ANY ADVICE? “Tony is definitely probably every driver’s dream come true to have as a boss. I mean, somebody I’ve watched since I was a little kid on TV and one of the legends of our sport is pretty amazing and he’s definitely one of those guys to have somebody give you support going into different things and going into races and into the playoffs means the world. We had a team pep rally this week and he was on it, and on the Zoom call obviously since we can’t do it in person, but to have that kind of support from him and seeing how we’re doing means a lot for me. I’ve watched him since I was a little kid.”
DO YOU FEEL YOU’VE MISSED OUT ON ANYTHING THIS ROOKIE SEASON BECAUSE OF COVID? “I think all the races with the fans before the race is probably the biggest thing. It was cool going to Daytona and still having it be a normal race because you have all the pre-race stuff going on and it’s really cool. I think that’s one of the biggest things is just the atmosphere before the race with the fans is probably the biggest thing that we missed out on.”
DO YOU FEEL YOU’RE AT A DISADVANTAGE IN THE PLAYOFFS BEING A ROOKIE AND NO PRACTICE? “You can go back and forth on it for sure. I think I would definitely like some practice. It’s one of those things that even though we’ve been to tracks like Darlington before, some of these guys have been there for 10-15 years. There’s stuff as a rookie that we’d just like to try in our car to see if it was better or worse, but we don’t really have that opportunity, so we make our best educated guess on what we brought there last time and what our teammates did and what we’ve compiled through this whole year of what works and what doesn’t work, but it’s just a matter of adapting as fast as you can and try and use your notebook as best you can.”
WHAT WILL BE YOUR MINDSET FOR THIS SOUTHERN 500 WEEKEND COMPARED TO THE OTHER TWO DARLINGTON RACES THIS YEAR? WILL THERE BE MORE NERVES? “I think so, for sure. One of the biggest things is how you manage your car for that long of race in a playoff race. A lot of times sometimes you’ve got to be a little bit conservative at the start of a race to make sure you don’t knock the fence down and ruin your day, where now you might have to be aggressive from lap one, so you might see a lot more guys hitting the fence throughout the race, so that’s probably the biggest thing is how you’re gonna manage your car throughout that long of a race.”
HOW DOES THIS TRACK SUIT YOUR STYLE? “I think for me it’s a fun track to go and move around at and you do what’s best for you. You can kind of figure out your own kind of path of what works and what doesn’t for your line and how you work the throttle and how you want to save your tires. I think everybody kind of has their unique thing and own style in how they attack that racetrack.”
HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO RELY ON YOUR NOTES FROM PREVIOUS RACES THIS YEAR? “It’s huge. That’s all we have to really lean on is what we brought there last time because you don’t have any practice to kind of work through things. Keeping good notes and making sure you’re staying on top of things and coming to the racetrack prepared and crossing all the t’s and dotting all the i’s is very important right now. I think we’ve kept good notes. We’ve gotten better throughout the year and it’s just a matter of trying to put all the pieces to the puzzle together.”
WHICH WILDCARD TRACK IS YOUR BEST OPPORTUNITY OF MOVING UP THE STANDINGS? “Whatever one is next, I guess. You just look forward to the next one and you take it one step at a time. I don’t know how else to answer your question, really. I think all of the cutoff races are gonna be tough ones because they’re very unpredictable and they’re tracks where a lot of things can go wrong at, so I think they’re all gonna be pretty exciting.”
HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO FINE-TUNE YOUR NOTES FOR PHOENIX? “I think we’ve been good at the flat short tracks this year. It’s tough, like I said, there’s no practice to work through things, but at the same time we’ve had a good notebook and we make our best educated guess going into the race and I think we’ve done good at that. It’s just trying to use all your notes and trying to make sure you cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s going into every single race.”
