COLE CUSTER | RILEY HERBST
Daytona NASCAR Xfinity Series Advance
NASCAR Xfinity Series Overview
• Event: Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. 300 (Round 1 of 33)
• Date: Saturday, Feb. 18
• Location: Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway
• Layout: 2.5-mile oval
• Time/TV/Radio: 5 p.m. ET on FS1/MRN/SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Cole Custer Notes of Interest
• Cole Custer is back. The 25-year-old from Ladera Ranch, California, has returned to the NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2023 driving the No. 00 Haas Automation Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR). Custer is a 10-time Xfinity Series winner, a tally that includes an impressive, seven-win campaign in 2019, which was his last fulltime season in the Xfinity Series. From 2020 through 2022, Custer competed in the NASCAR Cup Series. He still moonlighted in the Xfinity Series, scoring a win last February in the Production Alliance Group 300 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. Driving a Ford Mustang for SS Green Light Racing, Custer beat Noah Gragson by .565 of a second to secure his second Xfinity Series win at his hometown track.
• The wrestler “Stone Cold” Steve Austin would punctuate his time in the ring by raising two beer cans above his head and then smashing them together before guzzling them down. In 2019 when Custer won the first of his seven races in March at Fontana, he emulated Austin’s antics in victory lane. A tradition was born, and so was the nickname “Stone” Cole Custer.
• Beer goes well with beef, and Custer is eyeing Saturday’s Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. 300 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway for another “Stone Cole” moment. It is the first race of the season and it will mark Custer’s 111th career Xfinity Series start. Custer likes the numerology and aims to add another No. 1 with career win No. 11.
• The Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. 300 will be Custer’s seventh Xfinity Series start at Daytona and his 14th overall. Custer has five NASCAR Cup Series starts at Daytona and a start apiece in the NASCAR Truck Series and ARCA Menards Series. His best Xfinity Series result at Daytona is 14th, earned twice (February 2018 and February 2019). His best overall finish at Daytona is 10th, earned in his lone ARCA race in February 2016.
• Fun fact: For that ARCA race, Custer won the pole and since he was just a few weeks removed from his 18th birthday, he became the youngest pole winner in ARCA history at Daytona.
• Time flies, for this past offseason Custer became a married man. He and wife, Kari, tied the knot in a ceremony in early January in Charlotte. The two got engaged during a rare NASCAR off-weekend in June 2022 after dating for several years. They reside in Cornelius, North Carolina, with their dog, Honey.
• Custer’s best man at the racetrack is Jonathan Toney. The Newton, North Carolina-native is the crew chief for Custer and the No. 00 Haas Automation Ford Mustang. Toney is one of the most tenured members of SHR. He joined Haas CNC Racing – the precursor to SHR – in December 2003, five years before Tony Stewart partnered with Haas Automation founder Gene Haas to form SHR. Toney was the lead engineer for Stewart and the No. 14 team from 2009 through 2012, helping secure Stewart his third NASCAR Cup Series championship in 2011 and the first for SHR. He remained an engineer at SHR, assisting the organization across its Cup and Xfinity Series programs, and spending considerable time with Custer during his previous stint in the Xfinity Series. The 2023 season marks Toney’s first as a crew chief.
Riley Herbst Notes of Interest
• Riley Herbst kicks off his third season as the driver of the No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang for SHR with the Beef. It’s What’s For Dinner. 300 at Daytona. The 120-lap race marks Herbst’s 110th career start and his eighth at Daytona. His previous best finish at the track is fourth, which he earned in August 2020 and then again in the 2022 season opener. In his past two seasons with SHR, Herbst has only finished outside the top-15 once at Daytona and led laps in three of four races.
• Herbst has five starts at Daytona outside of the Xfinity Series – three in the ARCA Menards Series and two in the NASCAR Truck Series – with a best of seventh in the Truck Series season opener in February 2020. He’ll also be making his NASCAR Cup Series debut the day after the Xfinity race during the 65th running of the Daytona 500, where he’ll pilot the No. 15 Ford Mustang for Rick Ware Racing.
• Richard Boswell returns as the crew chief for Herbst and the No. 98 Monster Energy team. The 38-year-old begins his seventh year with SHR and his third with Herbst. He has been the main steward of SHR’s Xfinity Series program since its inception in 2017 and has been the crew chief for nine of SHR’s 21 Xfinity Series wins. His drivers have qualified for the Xfinity Series Playoffs four straight seasons (2019-2020 with Chase Briscoe and 2021-2022 with Herbst). Boswell’s father Dickie Boswell successfully campaigned a Late Model stock car out of the family’s hometown of Friendship, Maryland. The elder Boswell ultimately competed in 57 Xfinity Series races with four top-five finishes over six seasons in the 1980s.
• During the offseason, Herbst went back to his family roots when he traded in his stock car for an off-road trophy truck for the 55th running of the Baja 1000 in November. The 23-year-old racer from Las Vegas drove the final leg of the 828.25-mile journey down the Mexican Baja Peninsula alongside his co-drivers – younger cousin Pierce Herbst and off-road racer James Dean – for the second year in a row. The team crossed the finish line first in class, but after serving a time penalty for missed checkpoints, ended up third.
Cole Custer, Driver of the No. 00 Haas Automation Ford Mustang
You’re returning to the NASCAR Xfinity Series and the No. 00 Haas Automation Ford Mustang where you enjoyed so much previous success. What do you expect heading back to the series where you first made a name for yourself?
“It’s going to be different. Everything about these Xfinity cars is different, from the setup to how it works. Getting back in the simulator has helped me get my head wrapped back around the Xfinity car. It’s a little bit less hectic in the Xfinity Series. Honestly, it’s less grueling of a schedule, but at the same time we’re going to do everything we can do each week to win races. Strategy is completely different in Xfinity. In Cup, you do a lot more green-flag pit stops. In Xfinity, you’re doing a lot of restarts on old tires. You have to save your tires a lot more than in Cup. The crew chief will stick you out there on old tires and you have to change your mindset in that scenario. You’re guesstimating how far you can push it on those opening laps on the restart on old tires. We’re hitting the ground running in getting ready for the 2023 season.”
The 2023 season also brings you a teammate with Riley Herbst back behind the wheel of the No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang. How will having a teammate help improve SHR’s Xfinity Series program?
“Riley and I have talked a lot. I’m looking forward to working with him, especially on superspeedways. I saw him getting left out a lot last year and I think we can work well together there. We can bounce ideas off of each other. It’ll be a good year and we’re hoping to grow the program.”
Riley Herbst, Driver of the No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang
You’re back for your third season behind the wheel of the No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang. Last year was a career-best year for you in the Xfinity Series in terms of top-fives (eight) and top-10s (20). Moving forward, what are your goals for 2023 and beyond?
“We need to be better and, hopefully, we will be. I want to be able to continue to grow and build on that success we had in 2022. Build those top-10s into top-fives and then turn those into wins. Victory lane is our end goal and that’s everyone’s goal here at SHR. Hopefully, we can achieve that. I feel like as racers, we always want to be better than last year. That’s the ultimate goal. In reality, we’re only going to be happy in victory lane. The biggest thing is to just build on that consistency and take one more step from where we were last year.”
You’re welcoming a new teammate this year with Cole Custer back in the No. 00 Ford Mustang. How excited are you to have a two-car team at SHR?
“I’ve known Cole for quite some time, now. He’s a really good guy and I’m hoping to grow that friendship. I think the biggest thing is strength in numbers. We’ve always been a solid race team in the Xfinity Series, but to have a teammate this year with Cole and to be able to lean on him is big. I can ask him questions, but we can also grow together each and every week. It will only make us stronger. We’ll be sharing notes and data every weekend. Not only that, but the organization now has two shots each weekend to make it to victory lane, so that helps, as well.”
