By Bob Pockrass
Any questions Cole Custer still faced were put to rest on Sunday when he pulled off a gutsy move, going four-wide for his first ever Cup Series win.
Yes, he entered the Quaker State 400 at Kentucky 25th in the standings with just one top-5 finish — a week earlier at Indianapolis where many of the top contenders had tire issues.
His only other top-10 was a ninth-place run at Phoenix. He had not led a lap and earned stage points in only three of 32 stages.
None of that really matters anymore.
The 22-year-old Cup rookie made a power move on the outside following a restart with two laps remaining to vault from sixth to the front of the pack as Martin Truex Jr., Ryan Blaney and Kevin Harvick all bounced off each other.
A lap later, Custer captured his first Cup victory in his 20th career start.
“It's just unbelievable,” Custer said. “I just came into this race hoping to get a solid finish and get us pointed in the right direction going towards the playoffs.
“To come out of it winning is just unimaginable.”
Two years ago, few could have imagined this moment. Custer had not won more than one race a season until 2019. He won once in trucks in 2014 and 2015, before going winless in running the full series in 2016, finishing 10th in the standings.
He moved to the Xfinity Series in 2017, winning once that year and once in 2018 before a breakout 2019 season in which he won seven races, finishing second in the Xfinity standings in both 2018 and 2019.
The last 18 months for the most part gave him the confidence he could race against the likes of Truex and Harvick. But experiences from even earlier than 2019, he said, helped him know he could pull off such a bold move at the end of the race.
“It just goes down to probably the Truck Series, honestly,” he said. “I think our restarts are very similar to the Truck Series. You just got to keep momentum up, make three‑wide moves.
“Overall it's a combination of everything, everything you learned throughout your career, trying to time the restarts right, get momentum on people, get to their outside.”
One of those 2019 Xfinity wins came at Kentucky. He also won at intermediate tracks at California, Pocono, Chicagoland and Darlington, so he knows how to manage the speed and the restarts.
“He has a lot of confidence here [at Kentucky],” said Mike Shiplett, a crew chief in Cup from 2008-2011 who then spent eight years in the Xfinity Series, including a season with Custer. “He won here a year ago at this race. We got him a car that he could drive, and he was happy with it."
His win certainly caught some of his competitors by surprise. By the time Custer was to the outside of Truex, there was nothing Truex could do.
“These things are all about momentum,” Truex said. “Obviously he was just able to keep his momentum going. We all kind of came together there going into [Turn] 3. He was able to take advantage of it. Obviously the outside is most of the time where you want to be. You get a green‑white‑checkered, a lot of crazy things can happen."
DiBenedetto, who was behind Custer on the final restart, joked that Custer owes him $100 for the strong push that helped Custer have the momentum he needed.
“Cole is always a smart racer,” DiBenedetto said. “He's one of those guys, even though he's a rookie, he doesn't make silly moves. He puts himself usually in pretty good spots."
The move and the give Custer a spot in the playoffs and also put him in the main event for the NASCAR All-Star Race this Wednesday at Bristol Motor Speedway.
“You don't want to make too many excuses or anything -- I think there's things I could have done a lot better honestly in these races,” Custer said. “At the same time, with no practice and no qualifying, you don't get to test. You don't know what to expect as a rookie.
“You kind of go in there with some ideas of what to expect. Until you get a real feel for the car, you're just kind of guessing really. You can look at as much data or film as you want, but when you don't have the feel for it or what these guys are actually doing when they're out there, it's kind of tough.”
Custer had the feel at least at Kentucky. And he made the most of it.
“He did a great job,” Blaney said. “I’m not really sure how he got to where he did. I don’t know where he lined up on the last restart, but he must have done something great.”
