Mixed Daytona Fortunes For Stewart-Haas Xfinity Teams

Riley Herbst (98) led the charge for Stewart-Haas Racing Friday night at Daytona Int'l Speedway. (HHP/Jim Fluharty photo)

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – It was a night of “what if?” for Stewart Haas Racing in Friday night’s NASCAR Xfinity Series Wawa 250 at Daytona Int’l Speedway.

Teammates Riley Herbst and Cole Custer both had up and down nights at the World Center of Racing, after looking for a rebound following a disappointing Michigan Int’l Speedway weekend.

The race for Herbst under the Daytona floodlights started off shaky, though he rallied to finish fourth. During his pit stop at the first stage break, Herbst was pulling out of his pit stall when Custer clipped the left rear quarter panel of his No. 98 Monster Energy Mustang Dark Horse, rattling a promising beginning.

After the incident, Herbst thought he might have a broken trackbar, but the issue turned out to be left-rear wheel damage that was rectified by a second pit stop and subsequent tire change.

In addition to the contact with his teammate, NASCAR officiating deemed Herbst was too low on his pit exit, putting the Las Vegas native at the tail end of the field for the ensuing restart.

However, all that chaos didn’t stop the 25-year-old, as crew chief Davin Restivo guided him back to a position well inside the top 10, leading a lap while also collecting nine stage points.

“It was kind of like our season so far, just up and down. I’m really proud of everybody on the No. 98 team; we just weren’t that good,” said Herbst of his race. “The first stage we struggled. Second stage we got better, but we had that incident on pit road, and in the third stage I thought we were going to have a shot at it.

“Unfortunately, we still just were a little too wound up, too tight in the center, and we ultimately need a little bit more pace here at these plate tracks.”

Friday night, Herbst recorded his second top five and fourth top 10 for Stewart-Haas Racing at Daytona. He had a sixth-place finish back in February and backed that performance up with improvement on paper in the annual summer stop.

The young prospect enters Darlington (S.C.) Raceway with four races remaining in the regular season, looking for his third straight top 10 at the track Too Tough to Tame.

However, he recognizes the value that learning at Daytona provides for the playoff race at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway in October.

“Hopefully, we’ll go to work at Stewart-Haas Racing and get ready for Talladega in the playoffs,”
Herbst said. “But I’m looking forward to these next few tracks, with everybody here on the No. 98 team and hopefully we can get close to that point.”

Cole Custer's car is serviced on pit road Friday night at Daytona Int'l Speedway. (HHP/Tom Copeland photo)

Custer, meanwhile, battled his way back from the contact on pit road only to see his night turn upside down again. For the second week in a row, the 26-year-old was caught up in a wreck not of his own making.

On lap 77, Custer was running on the inside entering turn 1, and for the most part avoided the brunt of a multi-car pileup. However, the Ladera Ranch, Calif., native was caught up in the back end of the carnage.

Fellow Ford driver Matt DiBenedetto, who was also spinning, came back up the track and collected Custer.  It was ultimately too much damage for the No. 00 team to repair and salvage a finish, and Custer was forced to the garage after the six-minute DVP (Damaged Vehicle Policy) clock expired.

“I just saw some guys get together up top and I just tried to shoot as low as I could and tried to get around it. It ended up that [DiBenedetto] started to spin in front of me, and we were just kind of along for the ride at that point,” said Custer.

“I hate it for Fanttik and everybody. I wish we had a better day. It was definitely one of the hardest days of our season, but we’ll get our feet back under us at Darlington.”

Custer is eager to return to Darlington, where he’s never finished outside the top 10 in six Xfinity Series appearances. In fact, he has five consecutive top five finishes there, most recently finishing third in May.

However, for the first time in weeks, Custer will enter a race without the regular season point lead. Back-to-back DNF’s have turned what was a 12-point edge over rival Justin Allgaier into a 33-point deficit.

“This is a really weird stretch for the Xfinity Series right now with so many speedway races. I think it’s four in a month-and-a-half or something, so a lot can happen,” Custer said. “We’ll rebound at Darlington and go after it.”

Coverage of the Sports Clips Haircuts/VFW Help a Hero 200 begins Saturday, Aug. 31 at 3:30 p.m. ET, live on USA, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.