STEWART-HAAS RACING
Focused Health 250
Date: March 23, 2024
Event: Focused Health 250 (Round 5 of 33)
Series: NASCAR Xfinity Series
Location: Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, TX (3.426-mile, 20-turn road course)
Format: 46 laps, broken into three stages (14 laps/16 laps/16 laps)
Note: Race extended four laps past its scheduled 46-lap distance due to a green-white-checkered finish.
Race Winner: Kyle Larson of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)
Stage 1 Winner: Parker Kligerman of Big Machine Racing (Chevrolet)
Stage 2 Winner: Riley Herbst of Stewart-Haas Racing (Ford)
SHR Race Finish:
● Cole Custer (Started 8th / Finished 4th, Running, completed 50 of 50 laps)
● Riley Herbst (Started 19th / Finished 34th, Accident, completed 45 of 50 laps)
SHR Points:
● Cole Custer (3rd with 192 points, 30 out of first)
● Riley Herbst (5th with 165 points, 57 out of first)
SHR Notes:
● Custer earned his third top-five of the season and his second top-five in four career NASCAR Xfinity Series starts at COTA.
● This was Custer’s third straight top-five. He finished second on March 2 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and fifth on March 9 at Phoenix Raceway.
● Custer has only finished outside of the top-10 at COTA once in his Xfinity Series career.
● Custer finished second in Stage 2 to earn nine bonus points.
● Herbst finished fifth in Stage 1 to earn six bonus points and won Stage 2 to earn 10 more bonus points and one playoff point.
● Herbst led one time for two laps – his first laps led at COTA.
Race Notes:
● Kyle Larson won the Focused Health 250 to score his 15th career NASCAR Xfinity Series victory, his first of the season and his first at COTA. His margin over second-place Austin Hill was 1.354 seconds.
● There were four caution periods for a total of nine laps.
● Twenty-nine of the 38 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap.
● Hill leaves COTA as the championship leader with a nine-point advantage over second-place Chandler Smith.
Sound Bites:
“It was a trying day, for sure. Overall, we just struggled. We were probably a fifth to 10th-place car. Then we got spun. I don’t know what happened there. Our guys did a great job, our pit crew was killing it on pit road. We got some stage points and battled our way through. We tried to race smart. Everyone was beating and banging so much, it was a mess out there. We held our own though. I can’t thank Haas Automation and Gene Haas enough. We wanted the trophy today, but we are going to have to work on it a little bit more to try to get our stuff better. Just got to keep working at it. This weekend wasn’t what we expected but we will move on to the next one and get it better.” –Cole Custer, driver of the No. 00 Haas Automation Ford Mustang
“I mean it just wasn’t our day at the end. We struggled on the long run speed and handling of our No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang Dark Horse, but we used pit strategy to get the most points out of our day though. We looked to be heading to a decent finish after some handling issues in the final stage, but just got spun. Obviously not what we wanted, but we’ll learn from it and head to one of my favorite racetracks next weekend.” –Riley Herbst, driver of the No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang
Next Up:
The next event on the NASCAR Xfinity Series schedule is the Richmond 250 on Saturday, March 30 at Richmond (Va.) Raceway. The race begins at 1:30 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FS1 and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
