Month: September 2020

Cole Custer and the No. 41 HaasTooling.com team for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) make the short jaunt down to South Carolina for Sunday night’s Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. Custer will make his 30th career start in NASCAR’s premiere series.

While HaasTooling.com will adorn Custer’s No. 41 Ford Mustang this weekend at Darlington, the car will have a unique look as part of Throwback Weekend at the historic track. In keeping with the theme, Custer’s Mustang is modeled after Curtis Turner’s 1965 Ford Galaxie. Turner is a 2016 NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee who won the 1956 Southern 500 at Darlington. Turner is the only series driver to win two consecutive races from the pole while leading every lap – Monroe County Fairgrounds in Rochester, New York, and Charlotte (N.C.) Speedway in July 1950.

Last May, Darlington hosted the first two events in the Cup Series’ return to racing after a 10-week hiatus due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In his May 17 start, Custer started 14th and finished 22nd. On May 20, the rookie started 22nd and ran as high as fifth before making contact with the wall, which forced him to pit for repairs, and he ended his day with a 31st-place finish.

In the Xfinity Series, Custer has three Darlington appearances and has started and finished in the top-10 in each. Last year at Darlington, Custer started third and took the victory by a margin of .602 of a second over second-place Tyler Reddick. In total, Custer has an average Darlington Xfinity Series starting position of 4.3 and an average finish of 4.0, and he’s completed all 442 laps available.

So far this season, the Mustang has won 14 races for Ford. Custer and his SHR teammate Kevin Harvick have both earned wins for the Blue Oval this season and have accounted for a total of eight victories. Harvick’s win two weeks ago at Dover gave Ford its milestone 700th in the Cup Series. Ford captured its first victory on June 25, 1950. Ford drivers make up 50 percent of this year’s playoff field, with eight drivers representing the Michigan manufacturer.

With Custer’s Cup Series win July 12 at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, he became one of 10 drivers who have won in each of NASCAR’s top three national series, as well as in ARCA and one of NASCAR’s developmental series.

Team co-owner Gene Haas’ newest holding, Haas Tooling, was launched as a way for CNC machinists to purchase high quality cutting tools at great prices. Haas’ cutting tools are sold exclusively online at HaasTooling.com and shipped directly to end users. Beginning July 1, HaasTooling.com products became available nationally. The cutting tools available for purchase at HaasTooling.com are even more important during the current COVID-19 pandemic as CNC machines have become vital to producing personal protective equipment.

SHR has two wins at Darlington. Harvick started from the pole and won in April 2014, and most recently he won this year’s May 17 event on the South Carolina oval. The championship-winning organization has all four of its entries locked into the playoffs and is the only four-car team to do so in the Cup Series. Custer enters the first round of the playoffs 11^th in points.

Haas Automation, founded by Haas in 1983, is America’s leading builder of CNC machine tools. The company manufactures a complete line of vertical and horizontal machining centers, turning centers and rotary tables and indexers. All Haas products are constructed in the company’s 1.1-million-square-foot manufacturing facility in Oxnard, California, and distributed through a worldwide network of Haas Factory Outlets.

Custer, who had a trio of starts in the Cup Series in 2018, clinched 2020 Rookie of the Year honors in his official rookie season in NASCAR’s most prestigious series. Competing against fellow rookie notables Christopher Bell and Reddick, he was the only rookie to clinch a playoff spot this season.

COLE CUSTER, Driver of the No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

How do you take what you’ve learned in the last 26 races and apply it to this playoff stretch?

“It is about applying everything we’ve learned and I think we’ve shown we can compete with everyone when we do everything right, and that includes me. I think we can move through the rounds and have a good playoff run. A lot of it comes down to the people at the race shop, too. It’s really important for me that I’m contending for wins in the playoffs. It sure would be nice to be able to add a championship trophy to the case at the end of the season, whether that’s me or one of my teammates.”

When you look at this year, it’s a pretty great feat to win in your rookie season. How does that feel?

“Getting my first Cup win this year was awesome. That all goes back to the things we do at the shop to put ourselves in those situations. We have all of the tools we need. Our owners Gene Haas and Tony Stewart give us plenty of tools to go out on the track and win races.”

All four SHR cars made the playoffs. What does that feel like?

“It’s amazing to get all four Cup cars in the playoffs, and the Xfinity car, too. Everyone at SHR has really adapted during this time to things like working totally different hours in the shop. They’ve been thrown a lot of curveballs this year and haven’t had a ton of time to prepare cars. But they’ve still given us cars that win races and have done such a great job keeping up with all of the changes.”

Chase Briscoe Notes of Interest

Aric Almirola, driver of the No. 10 Go Bowling Throwback Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) in the NASCAR Cup Series, will sport a special paint scheme this weekend honoring Glenn “Fireball” Roberts’ 1957 season, during which he won eight races. It’s a fitting paint scheme as Almirola begins his 2020 Cup Series playoff journey starting with Sunday night’s Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway.

Roberts’ eight victories in 1957 was a career high for a single season. Roberts was from Central Florida and attended college at the University of Florida before fully pursing his career in auto racing. In addition, Roberts was a pitcher for an American Legion baseball team, which is how he received his nickname – because of his fastball. Sadly, Roberts died from injuries sustained in an accident at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway in 1964. He was named as one of NASCAR’s “50 Greatest Drivers” in 1998 and was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2014.

Almirola and Roberts have a lot in common off the track.

“I went to college at the University of Central Florida to become an engineer and pursued racing while I was in school,” Almirola said. “I always say, if I didn’t go into racing I would have wanted to take the baseball route. I loved baseball growing up and I was pretty good at it. We have a lot in common. That 1957 season was solid for him, so we’re hoping to channel some of that energy into our playoff run and have a lot more in common on the track.”

This marks the third year in a row since joining SHR that Almirola has made the NASCAR playoffs. It will be his fourth playoff appearance in his nine-year full-time career. His best playoff run was in 2018, when he finished fifth in the season standings.

“We accomplished our goal of making the playoffs and clinching early so we didn’t have to worry about racing for a spot at Daytona,” Almirola said. “We wish we could have had a ‘W’ along the way, but we’re still enjoying the most consistency we’ve ever had.”

He’ll join his three SHR teammates in the playoffs. SHR is the only organization to place four cars in the playoffs. Last year, then-SHR driver Daniel Suarez fell just four points shy of earning a playoff berth, otherwise this would have been the third consecutive year SHR placed all four of its drivers in the playoffs.

Almirola enjoyed a career-best regular season with five top-five finishes, 14 top-10s and 286 laps led. In his last 15 races, he has 11 top-10s and five top-fives. He begins the playoffs 12th in the reset driver standings with 2,005 points.

Almirola needs to remain in the top-12 in points to advance to Round 2 of the playoffs. That makes running well Sunday night at Darlington, Sept. 12 at Richmond (Va.) Raceway, and Sept. 19 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway that much more important.

“On paper, the first round looks great for the No. 10 team,” Almirola said. “These are all tracks that I feel confident at and enjoy racing at. I couldn’t say that before this year because Darlington was always such a tough track for me.”

Go Bowling will adorn the No. 10 Ford this weekend at Darlington for the second time this year.

The Go Bowling America league program focuses on bringing families, young adults and kids back to the lanes in a healthy and safe fashion, as centers around the country have implemented strict measures to ensure the wellness of its employees and customers who come to bowl. Go Bowling, in conjunction with its industry partners, has introduced detailed safety protocols to the thousands of U.S. bowling centers that include social distancing recommendations, use of personal protective equipment where required, and guidelines for sanitizing balls and shoes, as well as other equipment in the facility. Additionally, the Go Bowling America league program provides every bowler who joins at a participating bowling center with his or her own, brand-new bowling ball to minimize shared contact.

With two of Roberts’ 33 wins coming at Darlington, and Almirola and the No. 10 team earning their best Darlington finish in their last visit there in May, they are holding their heads high heading to the Round of 16 of the playoffs.

ARIC ALMIROLA, Driver of the No. 10 Go Bowling Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

You ran well the last time you went to Darlington. Why was that? 

“I thought we had a really good car that day. We ran up in the top-five quite a bit and had a really fast car on the long runs. Everyone else’s car would slow down a lot and my car wouldn’t slow down nearly as much on the long run. We would start beating all the leaders really good on the long run. If we could have had that race go green to the end, I think it would have been interesting because we were beating the leaders pretty bad. We came back with some setup changes from what we ran the race before and I felt like we made some real improvements to the car and were very competitive.”

What would it mean to win at Darlington?

“It is such a physically demanding track, it’s such a demanding track on the car, on the crew, on everybody. When you win at Darlington, you’ve done something. Darlington is just a really tough racetrack. It’s called ‘Too Tough to Tame’ and the ‘Lady in Black’ for a reason. It such a challenging place. To go there and have success, to walk away with a trophy, is a bucket list kind of race that you want to win and it would give us the peace of mind to earn as many playoff points as possible at Richmond and Bristol for the Round of 12.”

What has led to such a great season for you so far? 

“A great team and organization. I feel like as a racecar driver I keep getting better. Every time this team has a weak point we address it and often times fix it. It’s racing, so things happen. We just stay so motivated as a team. Buga is a great leader and motivator to this No. 10 Ford team. We mesh well together and now it’s time to see how we handle the playoff pressure. I feel good about it.”

As Clint Bowyer is fond of saying, the pay window in the NASCAR Cup Series is now officially open with the start of its 10-race, 16-driver playoffs Sunday night at historic Darlington (S.C.) Raceway during the 71st annual Southern 500.

“Now is the time to make your money,” Bowyer said when asked about Darlington’s first-ever playoff race.

“This is when it all starts in our sport. As a driver, no matter what’s happened up until now in 2020, and good lord there has been so much going on both on and off the track, the thing you are going to remember about this season, competition-wise, is what happens beginning Sunday and goes until we race in Phoenix in 10 weeks.”

Bowyer arrives at Darlington carrying a special PEAK Antifreeze Throwback paint scheme on his No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) Ford Mustang. Bowyer’s paint scheme will celebrate PEAK’s first NASCAR victory when Kyle Petty and crew chief Gary Nelson dominated the 1990 race at Rockingham (N.C.) Speedway. Petty led 433 of 492 laps on his way to victory in one of the more memorable races in the sport’s history.

“Ol’ Kyle had it going on that day,” Bowyer said with a laugh, adding that he joined Petty and Nelson earlier this summer to watch a replay of the race. “He put a whuppin’ on them. I’d love to do something like that in Darlington this weekend. I love watching those old races, and it was fun to hear Kyle and Gary talk about it. Kyle will be part of the NBC television coverage this weekend, so we want to make him proud.”

Sunday night’s race will mark Bowyer’s fifth of six primary partner races planned for Old World Industries, the parent company of the PEAK Coolant & Antifreeze and BlueDEF® brands. The company’s legacy in motorsports spans 40 years and includes leading drivers such as Dale Earnhardt, Michael Waltrip and Petty. Besides Bowyer’s No. 14 team, PEAK is a partner with the Haas F1 team with drivers Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen, the NASCAR PEAK Mexico Series and drag racing’s winningest driver John Force.

This weekend’s scheme is in keeping with “The Official Throwback Weekend of NASCAR,” during which the industry honors the sport’s history. Nearly all the Cup Series teams will sport throwback paint schemes in the Southern 500.

Last year, Bowyer’s Ford carried a nearly identical paint scheme to his car owner and 2020 NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee Tony Stewart’s 2011 championship-winning car at SHR. Bowyer has also raced throwback paint schemes honoring Mark Martin and Ned Jarrett at Darlington during his SHR tenure.

As part of the Darlington weekend, PEAK will donate up to $5,000 to Petty’s Victory Junction Camp that enriches the lives of children with serious illnesses by providing life-changing camping experiences at no cost to children or their families. Beginning Tuesday, PEAK will donate $1 to the 84-acre Victory Junction camp in Randleman, North Carolina, for each of the first 5,000 new followers added to the PEAK Twitter page @PeakAuto.

“This is one of the best weekends of the year,” Bowyer said. “You get to see so much of this sport’s history come alive. You see the old paint scheme, the old style hats. The sponsors like PEAK really get into it and make it special. Now with this year being the first time the playoffs start in Darlington, it will be extra special.”

Bowyer begins the playoffs 13th in the reset standings with 2,004 points thanks to a 19th-place finish last Saturday night at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway. Bowyer battled for the victory on the final lap before contact sent him into the wall, leaving him with a 19th-place finish. Despite the disappointing result at Daytona, the recent run of solid results continued for Bowyer, who has scored the sixth-most points of any driver in the last six races.

Sunday marks Bowyer’s ninth career playoff appearance, as well as third consecutive appearance with SHR. To advance to Round 2 of the playoffs, Bowyer needs to remain in the top-12 in points through Round 1. That makes running well Sunday at Darlington, Sept. 12 at Richmond (Va.) Raceway, and Sept. 19 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway imperative to a chance for the title.

“I’ve always thought the first round is the toughest,” he said. “You have to be ready to go right out of the box. You can’t have any mistakes. You sure as heck can’t afford to get behind.”

Bowyer might not have had the regular season he wanted in terms of victories, but it wasn’t a bad year. He earned two top-five finishes and seven top-10s in 26 regular-season races. He earned the 10th-most bonus points of any driver. But the regular season is over and he is ready for the playoffs.

He’ll join a four-Mustang contingent of SHR drivers in the playoffs as he joins teammates Kevin Harvick, Aric Almirola and Cole Custer. SHR is the only organization to place four cars in the playoffs. Then-SHR driver Daniel Suarez fell just four points shy of earning a playoff berth in 2019. It would have marked the third consecutive year SHR placed all four of its drivers in the playoffs.

Darlington hasn’t always been kind to Bowyer over the years, where he has two top-10 finishes and a pole in 16 starts. But, the 41 year-old Emporia, Kansas native flashed real speed in the two 400-mile Darlington races held in a three-day period earlier this year when NASCAR returned from a 10-week hiatus due to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in March.

On Sunday May 17, Bowyer finished fifth in the second stage and appeared ready to battle for a top-five finish but a loose car dropped him back in the field, leaving him with a 17th-place finish. On Wednesday May 20, Bowyer won the first two stages and led 71 laps in a dominating first half of the night race. An untimely caution dropped him off the lead lap in the final stage and contact with the wall and a cut tire left him with a 22nd-place finish.

Showing that speed again on Sunday should make Bowyer one of the favorites in a race that will be held in front of 8,000 to 10,000 fans in the 47,000-seat facility, nicknamed the “Track Too Tough To Tame,” received state approval earlier this month. All fans are required to wear face coverings or masks and temperature checks will be given while entering.

Bowyer knows he has some big shoes to fill Sunday if his Mustang is to duplicate Petty’s PEAK performance 30 years ago at Rockingham, but he also knows the stakes have never been higher with Darlington as the playoff opener during one of the sport’s biggest weekends of the season.

CLINT BOWYER, Driver of the No. 14 PEAK Antifreeze Throwback Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

What is your strategy Sunday?

“That’s easy – our strategy is to win, simple as that. What a great time it would be for a win! We did that in 2010, won the first race in the playoffs. It’s a great way to set the tone for the whole playoff run. We ran really well the last time we were in Darlington, plus these first tracks coming up are in my wheelhouse. We feel very confident.”

What are your thoughts on Darlington?

“I like the uniqueness of the track. I’ve struggled to have good finishes there but we’ve always raced well. We just can’t seem to seal the deal at the end. Something always goes haywire in the end but, sooner or later, we are going to overcome that and have a good weekend. Doing that this weekend would be perfect.”

What do you think of the older cars racing at Darlington?

“I always thought it would be neat, if you could, to be able to put those cars back on the track and have us be able to race them – or even today’s technology, just make the rules mandate those old cars and see. The crazy thing is, you can’t unlearn the evolution of racing and everything that we’ve learned over the years. These engineers and guys, they could make those guys so much faster than they were back then, but it’s not fair. It’s not fair to the guys back then. They didn’t have the tools and simulation and all the things they have today, so I can tell you it’s because of those cars that racing is where it is. Those guys taught these kids and these guys who are building chassis and making these cars go fast today learned from those guys, and they learn pretty fast. But it would be cool to be able to go back and put those old jalopies back on the track and see what would happen.”

Everyone who grew up in the 1980s loved the movie Back to the Future, starring Michael J. Fox.

Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 4 Busch Beer Throwback Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing, is hoping to go Back to the Future for the next week en route the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series championship.

The Busch Beer Throwback scheme pays tribute to Harvick’s championships in what was then known as the NASCAR Busch (now Xfinity) Series. He won his first in 2001 and followed that up with another in 2006. Those titles helped Harvick learn how to win championships, which he did at the Cup Series level in 2014.

He’s hoping to add the 2020 title to his Cup Series resume and become just the 17th driver to win it twice or more. He’s had a tremendous year with a series-high seven victories, 17, top-five finishes and 21 top-10s.

Harvick is now tied for ninth with Kyle Busch on the all-time NASCAR Cup Series wins list with 56, and he’s 20 behind the late Dale Earnhardt, who is eighth with 76 checkered flags. Harvick is tied for second with Busch on the active driver list as both are behind Jimmie Johnson, who has 83 victories.

On Aug. 23 at Dover, Harvick led the 15,000th lap of his NASCAR career. He is 11th all-time, now with 15,151 laps led, and trails 10th-place Busch, who has led 17,676, and Johnson, who is ninth with 18,936. Harvick has led 10,725 laps as an SHR driver, having reached the 10,000-laps-led milestone as an SHR driver when he took the lead on lap 37 on June 7 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

All those records are nice, but the No. 4 team is all about winning championships and it starts at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway this Sunday night. Harvick has two wins, three poles, 10 top-five finishes, 14 top-10s and has led a total of 750 laps in his 25 career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Darlington.

But the combination of Harvick competing at Darlington in SHR equipment is impressive. In his last eight Cup Series starts at the “Track Too Tough To Tame” – all of which have come with SHR – he has finished inside the top-10 at each, seven of which were top-fives, with two wins.

There are 10 races until the title is decided Nov. 8 at Phoenix International Raceway. And the road to the championship starts on Sunday.

KEVIN HARVICK, Driver of the No. 4 Busch Beer Throwback Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing: 

With the points margin that you have, particularly the bonus playoff points, would it be disappointing if you don’t make it to Phoenix to fight for the championship?

“Yeah, look, right now we’re one week at a time. Our goal is to really worry about what’s happening this week. We’re not even close to Phoenix. I think, for us, we want to be competitive week in and week out because the season is too long to not be competitive. Putting it all together at one race is tough to do, and I think as you look at going to Phoenix, we ran well there at the beginning of the year, but that’s a long way away at this particular point, and it would be silly for us to look that far ahead.”

In previous years, you made it to the Championship Four numerous times. Have you thought about what you can do differently to get that second championship, or are there so many circumstances that are out of your control?

“Yeah, there are a number of circumstances. Phoenix is a way better racetrack for us than Homestead was. We were able to put that together one year, but those low-grip, high-downforce racetracks for us – (like) Homestead – have just been a struggle to kind of hit on everything that we need to do to make our car run like it does everywhere else. I think it’s a better scenario for us, Phoenix, but like I say, it’s still a long way away.”

You’ve accomplished a lot of records this year. What does it mean to you to be on a list with some of the guys who are in the Hall of Fame?

“Well, I’ve been fortunate, especially over the last seven years, to drive really fast racecars and capitalize on the things we’ve been given. But when you start talking about those lists and the names of people who you’re around and passing, whether it’s laps led or race wins or whatever the category is, it’s just an honor to be on those lists and be around those guys. So hopefully we can keep it going.”