NASCAR Xfinity Series Overview • Event: Contender Boats 300 (Round 31 of 33)• Date: Saturday, Oct. 21• Location: Homestead-Miami Speedway• Layout: 1.5-mile oval• Time/TV/Radio: 3 p.m. EDT on USA/MRN/SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Cole Custer Notes of Interest • Cole Custer heads to Saturday’s Contender Boats 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway on a mission, first and foremost, to protect his position in the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs. But the driver of the No. 00 Haas Automation Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) also would love nothing better than to score a victory that would lock him into the Championship 4 two weeks early for Phoenix Raceway. Custer entered last weekend’s Round of 8 playoff opener at Las Vegas Motor Speedway two points below the top-four cutline but drove to a strong, third-place finish and emerged in the top-four with a 15-point buffer ahead of fifth-place Chandler Smith. Custer qualified second at Las Vegas, won the opening stage of the race, and finished second in Stage 2 to accumulate 19 bonus points. He arrives at Homestead, a track where he’s excelled in his three previous visits, four points behind third-place Austin Hill and eight points behind second-place Justin Allgaier in the playoff standings. Current points leader John Hunter Nemechek is 32 points ahead of Custer. • Saturday’s Contender Boats 300 marks Custer’s fifth Xfinity Series start at Homestead. He finished first, second and second in his most recent three outings at the 1.5-mile oval after finishing 17th in his Xfinity Series debut there. His win, from the second starting position, came in November 2017 after leading 182 of the 200 race laps. It was his milestone first in the Xfinity Series driving the No. 00 Haas Automation Ford Mustang. Custer followed with back-to-back runner-up finishes in the November 2018 and 2019 season finales. Both results placed him second in the final championship standings. Custer has led a total of 292 laps at Homestead in his Xfinity Series career and has completed every lap he’s run there. He has an additional four starts at Homestead outside of the Xfinity Series – three in the NASCAR Cup Series and one in the NASCAR Truck Series. His best Cup Series finish of 22nd came in June 2020. In his lone Truck Series start there, he started second and finished 10th. • Custer isn’t the only member of the No. 00 Ford team who knows how to win at Homestead. His crew chief Jonathan Toney was lead engineer of team co-owner Tony Stewart’s drive there to the 2011 NASCAR Cup Series championship. Toney also served as an engineer for Custer during his 2017 Xfinity Series victory at Homestead. • Custer’s drive to championship contention came after a slow start to the season. He and the No. 00 team began their turnaround with their fifth-place finish April 1 at Richmond (Va.) Raceway. That was the beginning of their streak of 11 consecutive top-10 finishes. Custer scored his first victory of the season June 3 at Portland (Ore.) International Raceway and added his second July 1 in the Inaugural Chicago Street Race, solidifying his spot in the 12-driver NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs. He opened his playoff run with finishes of fourth at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, seventh at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, and second on the Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway Roval. Those strong runs easily advanced Custer to the Round of 8, which he opened with last weekend’s third-place finish at Las Vegas. Riley Herbst Notes of Interest • Riley Herbst is now a NASCAR Xfinity Series winner as he heads to Saturday’s Contender Boats 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway after scoring his long-awaited victory in last weekend’s Alsco Uniforms 302 at his home track of Las Vegas Motor Speedway. After qualifying eighth, Herbst was sent to the rear of the starting grid for unapproved adjustments made to his No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang prior to the race. From there, a determined Herbst mounted a charge toward the front, finishing Stage 1 in 10th place, then passing teammate Cole Custer on the final lap of Stage 2 on his way to his second career stage win. Herbst then dominated the final stage, leading 102 of the final 111 laps of the race and crossing the finish line 14.959 seconds ahead of runner-up John Hunter Nemechek. Herbst’s margin of victory was the third largest in the Xfinity Series since Ford driver Jeff Burton bested Michael Waltrip by 10.493 seconds in the October 2002 race on the Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway oval. Herbst’s margin of victory was also the largest by a first-time Xfinity Series winner since Mike McLaughlin beat Mike Wallace by 23.280 seconds in the June 1995 race at Dover (Del.) International Speedway. • With his first career Xfinity Series win checked off his to-do list, Herbst is focused on adding more as the season winds down at three of his better tracks on the NASCAR circuit. Consistency has been key for the No. 98 Monster Energy driver at Homestead. He has never finished outside the top-11 in four career starts on the 1.5-mile South Florida oval. The next race Oct. 28 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway comes at a track where Herbst has finished outside the top-10 just twice in six starts, with a best finish of third last October. And the season concludes Nov. 4 at Phoenix Raceway, where Herbst drove to best finishes of fourth in both 2021 races and again this past March, and has finished outside the top-11 just twice in eight career starts. • The Contender Boats 300 will mark Herbst’s fifth career start at Homestead, where his best finish of eighth came last October in the No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang. He was 11th in the February 2021 race after back-to-back top-10s there in the June 2020 weekend doubleheader – 10th in the Saturday race and ninth in the Sunday race. • Herbst is driving for a team that knows how to win at Homestead. The previous driver of the No. 98 Ford Mustang, Chase Briscoe, won the second race of the 2020 doubleheader after a seventh-place finish in the Saturday race, and runner-up finishes in 2018 and 2019. Cole Custer, Driver of the No. 00 Haas Automation Ford Mustang You’re heading to the second race of the Round of 8 and you’ve successfully put yourself into the top-four with your third-place finish last Saturday at Las Vegas. Do you feel like you have to win to make it to the next round?“I don’t think we’re in a place where we have to win. The No. 00 Haas Automation team has had a ton of speed in the playoffs. I think if we keep managing our races, having good races, and doing what we need to do, then we can make it to the next round. There’s no reason why we can’t be in a good position on points to make it to the Championship 4. You saw that at Las Vegas last weekend, and I think after Homestead that we could be in an even better position. You obviously want to win, but you also want to look at the bigger picture.” You scored your first career Xfinity Series victory in November 2017 at Homestead after just missing the Championship 4. Talk about your career at Homestead and if there’s any extra confidence because of your history there.“Homestead has always been a strong place for the Stewart-Haas Racing Xfinity Series team. Having my first win there was big, but also we’ve been consistently racing for the win at this track. We’re always in the fight to win. I think we just have a good package for this track and on mile-and-a-halves, in general. Hopefully we continue that this weekend. It’s a place that I’ve always been comfortable with and somewhere where you really have to search around the track to find grip and figure out what line works best for your car. It’s a lot of fun for myself as a driver.” Riley Herbst, Driver of the No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang You’re officially a NASCAR Xfinity Series winner. From the beginning of the season, you’ve said that winning was your goal for the 2023 season. How does it feel to finally park your No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang in victory lane?“It feels great. To get my first victory is more than I could even imagine. On top of that, to get my first win in my hometown just meant that much more. I was in front of all the family and friends who supported me throughout the years, on top of the team that helped me keep my head up when I was down. Everybody said I can’t do it, I wouldn’t do it, that I won’t win in the Xfintiy Series, that I wasn’t good enough. I proved them wrong. I just flat out beat them. I’m proud of myself and how far I’ve come as a driver. I can’t thank Monster Energy, Stewart-Haas Racing, and the No. 98 team enough for never giving up on me. They were there for me when no one else was.” Homestead has been a strong track for you. Coming off your win at Las Vegas, another intermediate track, does that boost your and the team’s confidence for what can come from this weekend’s race?“It definitely gives us a confidence boost, but at the same time we take it one race at a time. Homestead is an intermediate track like Las Vegas, but it’s still different. I’ve run well at Homestead in my career, but it’s a good track for a lot of people in the Xfinity Series. I’m hoping that we can take the notes from last week and the notes from the team’s history there to run up front. I have no doubt in my mind that we can contend for the win. We just have to put another great race together.” -SHR-
