• Cole Custer is ready to head to a track that has suited him well in the past for Friday night’s Food City 300 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway. After a tough race last Saturday at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International that yielded a disappointing 21st-place result for the road course ace, the driver of the No. 00 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse is welcoming the new scenery in the mountains of East Tennessee. While the past month has been a roller coaster of emotions after losing the regular-season points lead at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway, Custer arrives for the regular-season finale at Bristol second in the driver standings, 43 points behind leader Justin Allgaier. Custer is locked into the seven-race,12-driver Xfinity Series Playoffs, which kick off next weekend at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City. Custer is seventh in the playoff standings with eight playoff points.
• Friday night’s Food City 300 will mark Custer’s eighth Xfinity Series start at Bristol. In his prior seven visits to the high-banked, .533-mile, concrete oval, Custer has scored five top-10 finishes and started from the pole three times – August 2018, April 2019, and last September. He led 25 laps in the April 2019 race en route to his best Bristol finish of third, which he followed up in last September’s night race with a fourth-place finish after leading 109 laps from the pole. He has an additional nine Bristol starts outside of the Xfinity Series – four in the NASCAR Cup Series, three in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, and two in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East. Best of those was a sixth-place finish in the 2016 Truck Series race.
• Returning to the No. 00 Ford Mustang Dark Horse this weekend is HighPoint.com, the leading provider of technology infrastructure solutions that is headquartered in Sparta, New Jersey. HighPoint has been a partner of Stewart-Haas Racing since 2020, when the company supported Chase Briscoe’s NASCAR Xfinity Series campaign, a collaboration that netted a series-best nine victories. HighPoint has climbed the NASCAR ladder with Briscoe and has helped Stewart-Haas maximize its IT investments. As an IT Solutions Integrator focused on all things that connect, HighPoint helps its customers with the selection and supply of network infrastructure, mobility, collaboration, data center, security solutions and the risk-mitigated implementation and management of its technology. The company, founded in 1996, is a minority-owned business that serves markets in its nearby Tri-State Region (New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware) and the Southeastern United States via its presence in Charlotte, North Carolina, as well as globally with offices in Amsterdam and London. To learn more about HighPoint’s solutions, visit HighPoint.com.
• Custer will sport a unique pair of gloves this weekend at Bristol as part of the Driven to Give Glove Program in collaboration with the Dale Jr. Foundation. At the conclusion of Friday night’s race, Custer will autograph a pair of Simpson gloves featuring a red skeleton with his Cole Custer logo, and they will be auctioned off to raise money for the foundation. From Friday night through Sept. 23, the gloves will be up for bid at www.thedalejrfoundation.org.
• Riley Herbst hopes to keep his strong runs rolling Friday night under the lights in the Food City 300 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway. While the driver of the No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang Dark Horse earned a 13th-place finish last Saturday at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International, it wasn’t indicative of his strong run, during which he ran well inside the top-10 all day. He’s looking forward to racing Friday night on the .533-mile, concrete oval in East Tennessee. Herbst’s success on short tracks has been notable throughout his Xfinity Series career. Of his 23 Xfinity Series short-track starts, he has earned seven top-fives and 15 top-10s with 40 laps led. In the past four seasons since joining SHR in 2021, Herbst has finished in the top-10 at each of the short tracks on the schedule at least once, with a best of third atBristol in September 2021. He hopes to add to those numbers and close the deal at Bristol with another victory and another five playoff points prior to the start of the Xfinity Series Playoffs Sept. 28 at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City.
• Friday night’s race will mark Herbst’s sixth Xfinity Series start at Bristol. Of his five prior starts, Herbst has four top-10 finishes highlighted by his third-place run in September 2021 behind the wheel of the No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang. In last September’s race under the Bristol lights, he finished seventh. Since joining SHR in 2021, he’s never finished outside the top-10 at Bristol. He has an additional three starts there outside the Xfinity Series – two in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East and one in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. Best of those outings was his 10th-place effort in the 2016 K&N East race.
• The last time Bristol hosted the Xfinity Series regular-season finale in 2022, Herbst finished fifth, his second consecutive top-five at the track. He started 12th and proved his resiliency after a spin on lap 13 that put him outside the top-20. He worked his way up to 15th by the end of the first stage, then found himself back inside the top-10 during most of the second stage before ultimately finishing fifth. In the final stage, he struggled with the balance of his Ford Mustang, but a strategy call by his No. 98 team on lap 270 for four fresh tires and fuel proved to be just the call he needed. He was able to restart fifth with 20 laps to go and stayed there to secure his third career Bristol top-10. Herbst only added to those numbers with his top-10 finish last September. Currently, he’s on a four-race top-10 streak at Bristol.
• Like his teammate Cole Custer, Herbst will once again be supporting the Dale Jr. Foundation this weekend. His custom pair of Monster Energy green skeleton gloves will join the Driven to Give Glove Program effort to benefit the Dale Jr. Foundation. The initiative supports Nationwide Children’s Hospital and its efforts to help courageous patients and their families in areas of pediatric injury rehabilitation, research and cancer prevention. After Friday night’s race, Herbst will autograph his gloves and put them up for auction at www.thedalejrfoundation.org from Friday night through Sept. 23.
Cole Custer, Driver of the No. 00 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse
Bristol is a strong track for you. Not only do you have three poles there, you also have five top-10 finishes in seven prior starts. What do you need to do this weekend to seal the deal and bring home your first win at the track?
“We just need to stay out of trouble and be the best of the best. Every driver in this field loves Bristol and many perform well at it. If we want to have a shot to win, then we need to be perfect all weekend. We have to unload fast and be able to hold off the field. Bristol is also a track that is so small that you can get caught up in some trouble really fast. Honestly, we just have to be prepared for anything. I know the No. 00 team will give me a fast Ford Mustang this weekend, now it’s just about capitalizing on it. HighPoint.com is back on the car this weekend and I’m hoping we can park them in victory lane for their final race of the season.”
The 2024 regular season is coming to a close at Bristol. Talk about your journey this season and your outlook on the playoffs.
“Man, it’s been a year. We’ve seen some highs and lows, but overall I wouldn’t trade any moment. It was frustrating going through so much of the season without a win, but it wasn’t like we weren’t performing well. We were able to grab ahold of the top spot in the points standings and hold onto it without a win for quite a while. We got our first win at Pocono, but then we’ve had some bad luck since then. It sucks because we lost the points lead and continue to find trouble. This final stretch of races saw three superspeedway-style races, an intermediate, and a road course. We haven’t been able to capitalize on those superspeedway races and it hurt us big time. Even if we’re not regular season champions, though, we’ve accomplished so much as a team. We’re not ones to count out for the playoffs, either. I didn’t win the regular-season championship last year, but I took home the big title at Phoenix. If we can make it through the first round, the second round is the bread and butter for Stewart-Haas Racing. We just have to be smart at the first three races to make it through to the Round of 8.”
Riley Herbst, Driver of the No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang Dark Horse
You’ve repeatedly talked about Bristol being your favorite track on the Xfinity Series schedule. What is it about this short track that appeals to you?
“I think it’s just short-track racing in general that appeals to me. Most of the guys in the garage will say this, but these types of tracks take us back to our roots. Bristol is obviously unique with its layout, but I think it still has the same elements as other short tracks. That track is hectic. It’s so crazy. It’s so fast. It’s a little half-mile, and it’s high-banked. It’s so much fun to go and battle there and rub some fenders. I’m excited to head back to Bristol after our third place in 2021, a fifth-place run in 2022, and a seventh-place result last year. We’ve brought speed to short tracks this year and haven’t really gotten the finishes we deserved. I’m hoping we can get the job done and find victory lane again this weekend. We don’t have the pressure of making the playoffs on us now, so we can just focus on winning and getting more playoff points.”
This is the NASCAR Xfinity Series regular-season finale. While you’ve had a roller coaster of a year, you’ve had some pretty strong moments to make you look like a strong competitor for the 2024 championship. What do you need to do to bring home the title at Phoenix?
“We need to be solid and make the most of each and every race. This elimination-style playoffs make it so you have to be consistent, but you also have to make the most of each race. I’ve never made it out of the Round of 12 before, but if we can do that this year, then we’ll have a strong chance of making it to the Championship 4 at Phoenix. I scored the most points of any driver in the field in last year’s Round of 8 and I wasn’t even in the playoffs. Just imagine if we were. The Round of 12 is all about survival, but I have faith in this No. 98 Monster Energy team. We’ve had fast cars every weekend, but trouble seemed to find us a lot. If we can just be consistent and get strong finishes, we’ll have a shot to run for the championship.”
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