When Joe Custer, who largely runs the day-to-day operations of Stewart-Haas Racing, sent his son back to the Xfinity Series following a challenging debut Cup Series stint, he could have taken it as an death sentence to his confidence.
Instead, all Cole Custer has done is win races and has a chance to sweep the championship in both seasons he returned to the second-tier division before his return to the highest level with Haas Factory Team next year.
“A lot of confidence,” Custer said. “I think having won a championship here before and building on that and coming back and winning races and being with a great team and build on things and learn how to work with your team and get the most out of everything. It has been a great experience, and hopefully we can use all that going back to Cup.”
He raced Cup from 2020-to-2022 with one win at Kentucky but accepted the reassignment, winning three times last year and has a chance to match that number on Saturday with a championship win too. But he’s also grown tremendously as a human being over that time as well.
“I think I am definitely a lot different than a couple of years ago, just from having a wife and kid now and everything is a little different,” Custer said. “I think just having confidence is the biggest thing. Knowing what to look for. Knowing when you are struggling a little bit, what are the things you need to focus on. Those are things you kind of build on.”
But, to accomplish that goal, Custer will have to fend off fellow Championship Race finalists AJ Allmendinger, Justin Allgaier and Austin Hill. Oh, and there is Aric Almirola competing for the owner’s championship on Saturday as well, the title that actually pays at the end of the year.
It’s an eclectic bunch and any of these champions would make for compelling stories at the end of the year.
At 42-years-old, Allmendinger has found a second life in NASCAR with Kaulig Racing over the past six years. His Stock Car racing career was literally left for dead after he parted ways with JTG Daugherty Racing. He became a TV analyst who dabbled in Sports Car racing until Matt Kaulig and Chris Rice made him the centerpiece of their growing race team.
Allmendinger has won 16 Xfinity races and two Cup races with the organization and now he’s making his second Final Four appearance with them, having done so in 2021 as well.
Since he’s moving back to Cup next year, this may be his only chance to claim a championship, and that’s not lost on him.
“So all of this has always been a bonus and I try to cherish all of it,” Almendinger said. “I think that’s why you see the way I am when I win a race. I’ve spent a lot of years not winning and you never know when it’s your last one. So yeah, the intensity is always there, but definitely certain times, especially this week of just trying to think back and just take it all into a little bit as we talk now, trying to take it all in and just be thankful that I still get to do this.”
It’s been such an unorthodox path to this championship race as Allmendinger only won once, at Las Vegas to lock into the finale and only has seven top-5s and 17 top-10s. That’s the kind of season it has been for Kaulig, who just didn’t have speed until the start of the playoffs, but Allmendinger has capitalized.
You can just have 30 miserable weeks and weeks that you just feel like it’s never going to turn around and you’re never going to win a race again and you win the right one and it fixes everything,” Almendinger.
“And that’s kind of what Vegas did. Of course, I’d love to have 10 wins and all that, but we won the right one. We won probably the second most important one of the year and hopefully we can go win the most important one this weekend.
“But yeah, it’s just the way this year’s been. But I feel more prepared this weekend than I ever did back in 2021 when we here, or even 2022 when we’d won those races and we were trying to make it to Phoenix. So, it’s our best opportunity. Are we good enough? We’ll find out. But it’s not from lack of effort.”
At 37-years-old, Allgaier is similar to Allmendinger, in the sense that his career has more tread behind him than in front of him and the championship would be a rewarding testament to the hours he’s put in during his tenure.
Allgaier has spent 13 of his 15 seasons in the Xfinity Series, and the past eight at JR Motorsports, and his overall tally of results includes 25 wins with most of those seasons ending up in the top-5 of the championship standings both pre- and post-playoff.
All that’s left is the championship, not that he is putting a ton of credence into the narrative.
“I’ve had a lot of different ways of losing it, and now I got to try to find what that one way to go win it is. And if we do that, we walk out of here as a champion,” Allgaier said. “The thing that’s funny is I’ve watched drivers come before me, and I’m going to watch drivers come after me, that have success and run up front and get these opportunities that it just doesn’t work out for them and they don’t win a championship. Mark Martin on the Cup side battled for years as a guy that was an incredible driver and should have won five or six championships in my mind and never got one. Does that diminish my outlook on his career? Absolutely not. I think he was an amazing race car driver and did all the right things.
“So, for me, I’m going to walk out of this sport whether I’m a champion or not a champion, I’m going to walk out of it being proud of what I’ve accomplished and wouldn’t have changed anything. I look back over all the times that I’ve been in this Final Four, there’s not a single year that I would’ve done anything different. It’s just not worked out. So this year, while I want it to be different, I have no guarantee that it’s going to be different. There’s nothing about it that makes a difference, other than I just have to go out there and execute at a high level.”
Allgaier echoed that sentiment.
“If I win the championship on Saturday, it doesn’t really change my life,” Allgaier said. “I know I’m going back to the Cup series. But the joy of it comes from being able to bring trophies to the team. We’ve done a lot of it together.”
Hill, for his part, scoffs at that viewpoint.
“Everyone here is selfish and wants to win a championship for themselves and their teams,” Hill said. “Anyone who says they aren’t is lying. When it comes down to it, elbows will be up and guys will be muscling each other up the track to win a championship.”
This means a lot to Hill, who cried upon taking the checkered flag when he won Homestead to clinch a spot in the championship race.
“I’m not really emotional guy but I was overcome by all of it,” Hill said. “I just thought of how much my family has sacrificed to get me to this point. I thought of my wife and daughters and how much they sacrifice to let me do this. I thought of all of our partners. I know people think I’m a hard ass but I love what I do for a living and I put a lot into it.
“This championship is what we all race for and that’s why I got so emotional thinking about it.”
And that’s not youthful exuberance talking as Hill is 30 and is every bit the veteran as the other championship finalists. In fact, Custer, who has been around these circles for a long time too is the youngest of the bunch and he’s 26.
One potential hurdle for Custer, meanwhile, might be some lingering tension with Chandler Smith after the two traded paint at Martinsville racing for second. Smith faced a must-win scenario, and used the bumper to get around Custer earlier in the race, and it was reciprocated on a late restart.
Smith popped Custer in the face, earning a $10,000 fine in the process, but also giving him a black eye. Custer laughed at Smith in real time and also says he isn’t worried about retaliation on Saturday.
“I am not really thinking about it that way,” Custer said. “At the end of the day I am going to go run my race and see where we end up and try to maximize the day. You race how you get raced, and you go from there. At the end of the day, I am just going to focus on our weekend.”
Meanwhile, the championship four last year (Custer, Allgaier, Sam Mayer and John Hunter Nemechek) delivered a masterclass of how to race for a championship but it was also aggressive.
Does Custer expect to have to trade paint on Saturday at all?
“I think all four of us in this Championship 4 have a lot of respect for each other,” Custer said. “We all race really hard, but clean. I feel like it is hard to beat this Championship 4. It is a great group.”
Allmendinger isn’t discounting that the gloves could come off.
“We’re racing for a championship,” Allmendinger said. “I think we all have a mutual respect between us. Like, go down the line, and we’ll all admit that we’ve had run-ins with each other but I feel like we all want to win the right way.
“I do. I wont say that if I get roughed up early in the race that it won’t be game on from there. We’re all going to do what it takes to win a championship but I think we’re all going to want to be able to look ourselves in the mirror afterwards too.”
Hill says the fact there are three Chevrolets and one Ford in the championship will also help keep it especially clean.
“We haven’t heard from Chevy yet but I expect that conversation is coming,” Hill said. “We all want to race hard and we’re all working towards this same goal but at the same time, we don’t wreck all the Chevys and let the Ford win too.”