STEWART-HAAS RACING
Richmond 250
Date: March 30, 2024
Event: Richmond 250 (Round 6 of 33)
Series: NASCAR Xfinity Series
Location: Richmond (Va.) Raceway (.75-mile oval)
Format: 250 laps, broken into three stages (75 laps/75 laps/100 laps)
Race Winner: Chandler Smith of Joe Gibbs Racing (Toyota)
Stage 1 Winner: Aric Almirola of Joe Gibbs Racing (Toyota)
Stage 2 Winner: Aric Almirola of Joe Gibbs Racing (Toyota)
SHR Race Finish:
● Cole Custer (Started 3rd / Finished 10th, Running, completed 249 of 250 laps)
● Riley Herbst (Started 14th / Finished 13th, Running, completed 249 of 250 laps)
SHR Points:
● Cole Custer (3rd with 224 points, 41 out of first)
● Riley Herbst (5th with 194 points, 71 out of first)
SHR Notes:
● Custer earned his fourth top-10 of the season and his sixth top-10 in nine career NASCAR Xfinity Series starts at Richmond.
● Custer has never finished outside of the top-15 at Richmond.
● This was Custer’s fourth straight top-10 at Richmond.
● Custer finished eighth in Stage 1 to earn three bonus points and ninth in Stage 2 to earn two more bonus points.
● Custer led once for seven laps to increase his laps-led total at Richmond to 172.
● Herbst earned his fourth top-15 of the season and his fifth top-15 in seven career NASCAR Xfinity Series starts at Richmond.
● Herbst has only finished outside the top-15 once at Richmond since joining SHR in 2021.
● Herbst finished sixth in Stage 1 to earn five bonus points.
Race Notes:
● Chandler Smith won the Richmond 250 to score his third career NASCAR Xfinity Series victory, his second of the season, and his second at Richmond. His margin over second-place Aric Almirola was 4.495 seconds.
● There were six caution periods for a total of 51 laps.
● Only nine of the 38 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap.
● Smith leaves Richmond as the championship leader with a 10-point advantage over second-place Austin Hill.
Sound Bites:
“I felt like we definitely chased the car a little bit at the start. We were solid, and I thought we got the car pretty good that last stage. The tires just got killed somehow. Something was very strange with the tires with how you could hurt them. I didn’t even feel like I was going hard, and it just went really bad, so we were able to salvage pitting there. JT (Jonathan Toney, crew chief) used some good strategy to get us a good finish, but it was definitely a strange day overall. We’ll just have to move on to the next one. I think we had something there.” –Cole Custer, driver of the No. 00 Haas Automation Ford Mustang
“Man, it’s tough having such a strong car all day and then just fading at the end. Cautions didn’t really play out how we would’ve liked and our tires got so bad as the green flag run went on in the final stage. I wish we could’ve gotten up front with our Monster Energy Ford Mustang Dark Horse, but we just struggled to get the balance right. We started off too loose, but then got too tight. We’ll move on to Martinsville.” –Riley Herbst, driver of the No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang
Next Up:
The next event on the NASCAR Xfinity Series schedule is the DUDE Wipes 250 on Saturday, April 6 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. The race begins at 7:30 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FS1 and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
