COLE CUSTER, No. 00 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse – HOW REALISTIC DID YOU THINK IT WAS TO WIN THE REGULAR SEASON CHAMPIONSHIP GOING INTO THIS RACE? “Not very realistic. I knew we needed some help. That’s a good team with that 7 team and it would have been a really good race if they didn’t have whatever problems they had. I’ve always liked racing Justin. It’s just bad luck for them, I guess, but it’s a testament to our team, what we bring to the racetrack every single weekend. Any given weekend we can win. It’s been a tough month-and-a-half, but I know when we get our stuff right we’re gonna be up there fighting for wins and fighting for a championship.”
JUSTIN WAS IN VICTORY LANE. WHAT DID HE SAY? “He just said congratulations. It’s been a tough couple weeks for us. We got together at Atlanta and then we got together last week at Watkins Glen. He spun me out, so we’re gonna have to talk about things this week about how we’re gonna go forward, but he’s always been a great one to work with. He’s aggressive and races hard, but clean. It’s always great to have him in this series. He’s great competition and quality competition to race with.”
HAS IT BEEN EASIER TO PUSH THROUGH THESE TOUGH TIMES HAVING WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP? WHAT AREN’T WE SEEING BEHIND THE SCENES? “Overall, we just wrecked a lot of stuff. I mean, at Michigan we wrecked. At Daytona we wrecked. At Atlanta we wrecked. At Watkins Glen we kind of wrecked and finished horrible. It’s nothing that we’re really done wrong, just a lot of dumb stuff has happened. That kind of gets your confidence beat down a little bit, that you haven’t really put a race together in a while, so it definitely meant a lot to put this race together and be able to bring a really fast car to the track and know that we can go really put it to them in the playoffs.”
THAT’S 10 PLAYOFF POINTS – FIVE FOR THE WIN AND FIVE FOR THE REGULAR SEASON TITLE. HOW BIG OF A DIFFERENCE IS THAT? “I hope it makes me feel a lot better at Talladega and Martinsville because Talladega is gonna be wild and Martinsville you never know. Last year, everybody wrecked each other. You want any point that you can get to make yourself feel more comfortable, so any point we can get is huge. We just have to keep piling them up through the playoffs and keep it rolling.”
WHAT DID THAT DO FOR YOU CONFIDENCE WHEN YOU HAD TO PIT ON LAP THREE BUT WORK YOUR WAY THROUGH THE FIELD? “I knew that we just had a really fast car. I kind of knew it from lap one that we had something, so I knew going through the field it was gonna be tough, but we had our car set up pretty good to be able to pass and work the bottom, so it worked out good. We had a really fast car to be able to make passes. It was tough. We had to use the bumper a little bit to try to make passes, but we had a good enough car to be able to sustain a run on the bottom and be able to complete some passes.”
HOW LONG DID THOSE LAST 30 LAPS FEEL KNOWING YOU DIDN’T HAVE ANOTHER SET OF TIRES AND NEEDED TO WIN TO TAKE THE REGULAR SEASON TITLE? “I wanted it to go green as much as I could, but it’s tough with lap traffic. You just never know here. You catch one lapper that’s just really hard to pass and it can derail your whole race, so I was trying to be as aggressive as I could to get through lap traffic and move on, but it was tough. You kind of had to use the bumper a little bit to get by guys, but it’s just a testament to our car of how good we could work the bottom because not a lot of guys could.”
IS THAT A PLAYOFF MUSTACHE? “That’s the plan. We had some bad luck, so my wife thought we should try it. I just grew it out and I guess I’ve got to keep it now, but that’s another thing, too. We had our kid, Cal, about a month-and-a-half ago and it’s awesome to finally get our first win with him born. We’re gonna bring a trophy home to him, so that’s a really cool one, especially from Bristol. It’s one I’ve wanted for a long time.”
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO COME BACK AFTER A SEASON LIKE LAST YEAR TO AT LEAST REACH THIS POINT GOING INTO THE PLAYOFFS? “It’s huge. I mean, I think it just shows what this team can do and just the program that we’ve built. Every single weekend I feel like if we hit it right, we can go win races. It’s a great group of people that just wants to go out there and believe in one another and be able to fix problems and not point fingers at one another. We really just hone in on what we need to fix and I feel like if you do that enough and fix enough problems, you usually end up in a good spot. We’ve done a great job of that and just slowly but surely are getting our cars better and better. We’ll bring it to them in the playoffs.”
THIS WAS A YEAR OF UPHEAVAL FOR YOUR GROUP. HOW HAVE YOU GUYS BEEN ABLE TO KEEP THINGS TOGETHER OR DOES IT HELP THAT THE XFINITY PROGRAM IS STAYING AROUND? “It’s just a testament to the people. I think everybody on our group does a great job of blocking that stuff out because everybody at SHR had every excuse to not have a good year. It’s the toughest situation you’ll ever be a part of. I’ll tell you that right now. Everybody has what they’re focused on for next year. Everybody has to find what they’re gonna do, so you have to be understanding of that, but you also have to be understanding of we have to go out and try to win races. To keep everybody together is really tough and I feel like it’s just a testament to everybody in that building who has really stuck together. It’s a testament to see that 14 car in the playoffs and how much speed they have. I think just a great group of people that can go out there and still finish strong when this is probably the toughest year a lot of those guys will ever have on a race team – to be able to stay together as a team through this.”
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