Author: Ashlyn Siske

Event:  O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 (Round 31 of 33)
Date:  Oct. 24, 2020
Location:  Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth
Layout:  1.5-mile oval

Chase Briscoe Notes of Interest

•  Chase Briscoe is taking the stress out of the NASCAR Playoffs, at least for himself. The driver of the No. 98 Ford Performance Racing School Mustang has won the opening race in each round of the playoffs, ensuring his advancement into the next round. His win Sept. 26 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway punched his ticket to the Round of 8, and his victory last Saturday at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City cemented his place in the Championship 4 Nov. 7 at Phoenix Raceway. The playoffs began with 12 drivers, with each round jettisoning the four drivers lowest in points. The caveat, however, is win and you’re in. It’s the surest path to the Championship 4, and one Briscoe has chosen early and often.

•  And for the first time in his NASCAR career, Briscoe doesn’t have any stress about where he’ll be next year. The 25-year-old racer from Mitchell, Indiana, was tabbed to drive Stewart-Haas Racing’s No. 14 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang in the NASCAR Cup Series beginning in 2021. It’s a passing of the torch from Tony Stewart, who drove the No. 14 from 2009 through his final NASCAR season in 2016, and Clint Bowyer, who took over the No. 14 in 2017 after Stewart’s retirement from fulltime NASCAR racing. This will be Bowyer’s last NASCAR season before transitioning to the television booth where he’ll begin broadcasting NASCAR races for FOX in 2021.

•  In the NASCAR Xfinity Series’ most recent race at Kansas, Briscoe dominated. He led four times for a race-high 159 laps (79.5 percent of the laps available) and swept both stages before taking his series-leading ninth victory of 2020. Briscoe is just the fifth driver to earn nine or more wins in a single Xfinity Series season and he has the most wins of any Ford Performance driver in any Xfinity Series season – a mark previously held by Carl Edwards. His ninth win of the season also makes him just the second driver in series history to score nine wins in 30 races, joining only Kyle Busch, who accomplished this feat three times (2010, 2013 and 2016).

•  It was three months ago when the Xfinity Series last raced at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth. Briscoe started 12th in the 37-car field and quickly settled into the top-10, where he stayed until the caution flag waved on lap 196 and sent the race into overtime. Briscoe opted to bring his Ford Mustang to pit road for four new tires and one final adjustment and lined up eighth for the restart. He gained four spots on the penultimate lap before clawing his way to second when the checkered flag dropped. Fellow Ford Mustang driver Austin Cindric crossed the finish line first, .949 of a second ahead of Briscoe.

Cole Custer will make his 37th career NASCAR Cup Series start in his No. 41 Autodesk Fusion 360/HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) during Sunday’s Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 500 on the 1.5-mile oval at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.

Last week at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Custer started 13th and the No. 41 crew worked on his Mustang’s handling throughout the day. Unfortunately, late in the final stage, Custer received a pit road speeding penalty, which forced him to restart at the rear of the field. The rookie driver was able to work his way back up to a 14th-place finish.

Custer made his first Cup Series start at Texas earlier this year. The Ford driver started the July race 19th but, on lap 219 of the 334-lap event, he was involved in a multi-car accident that ended his day prematurely.

In the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Texas, Custer has six starts and, with the exception of an accident in March 2019, the young driver started and finished in the top-10. The 22-year-old earned a Texas win in November 2018 after leading 16 laps. In total, Custer has an average starting Xfinity Series position of 5.3 and an average finishing position of 9.5 at Texas. In the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series at Texas, Custer made two starts in 2016 with a best finish of ninth. Custer has a Truck Series average starting position of 14 and an average finishing position of 11.5 at Texas.

In his last 10 starts at intermediate tracks, Custer has one win – Kentucky Speedway in Sparta – and one other top-10 to bring his average finishing position to 16.7.

Looking ahead to next season, Custer’s former Xfinity Series teammate at SHR will be joining him in the Cup Series. Tuesday, SHR announced Chase Briscoe will drive the No. 14 Ford Mustang in 2021. “I’m really excited to work with Chase next year,” Custer said. “We had a lot of success when we ran Xfinity together. He’s been a friend of mine for several years now. I’ve been to the Chili Bowl with him and done other things with him away from the track. He’s an awesome guy and is very competitive and pushes everybody to be better.”

Even though Custer is out of contention for this year’s Cup Series championship, he still has three more opportunities to capture his second win of the season. This weekend, a limited number of fans will be allowed to attend the 500-mile event while following social distancing guidelines.

So far this season, Ford has won 18 races, and Custer and his SHR teammate Kevin Harvick have both earned wins for the Blue Oval – one for Custer and nine for Harvick. Ford’s milestone 700th win in the Cup Series came at the hands of Harvick on Aug. 23 at Dover (Del.) International Speedway. Ford captured its first victory on June 25, 1950. Ford drivers made up 50 percent of this year’s starting playoff field. SHR’s driver Harvick advanced to the playoffs’ Round of 8, of which Texas is the second of three races.

With Custer’s Cup Series win July 12 at Kentucky, 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.

Autodesk Fusion 360 will share the No. 41 Mustang’s livery with HaasTooling.com this weekend at Texas. Autodesk is a leading designer and supplier of software for the architecture, engineering, construction, media and entertainment, and manufacturing industries. Autodesk’s Fusion 360cloud-based 3D CAD, CAM, CAE, and PCB software brings enterprise-grade capabilities, data services, and a support network to teams of any size, uniting people, products, and processes across the product development process. The company empowers customers, like SHR, to push their boundaries and shape a thriving future.

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 74 starts at Texas with four wins – team co-owner Tony Stewart in November 2011, and Harvick with three wins in November 2017, 2018 and 2019. SHR has eight pole awards with 16 top-fives and 34 top-10s at the 1.5-mile track. In total, SHR has an average starting position of 13.2 and an average finishing position of 14.6 along with 1,286 laps led.

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 Tyler Reddick, he was the only rookie to clinch a playoff spot this season.

COLE CUSTER, Driver of the No. 41 Autodesk Fusion 360/HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

Gene Haas and Tony Stewart have both said if the Xfinity Series drivers win and prove themselves on the track, they’ll earn promotions to the Cup Series. You are proof of that, and now, so is Chase Briscoe. What does that say about your team owners and how nice is it to be validated based on your ability to compete?

“I think it shows what the Xfinity program has really come to be. To start an Xfinity team three or four years ago and to be one of the top, or the top organization in the series, is pretty amazing. I’ve been fortunate to be moved through it, and now Chase, and people in the shop, too. It’s all about our owners who have invested their time and effort in it, and moved people up through it. We’ve seen it work and hopefully there are other drivers who get the same opportunity.”

What do you think about the Texas victory lane celebration?

“I think Texas has one of the coolest victory lanes. All of the flames, the cowboy hats, it’s a really unique place to win because they always do a good job. They do a good job of promoting the race and it’s obviously an important race in the playoffs.”

What in the Cup Series was your big “ah-ha, this is the Cup Series” moment?

“Just being around the guys who I’ve watched on TV since I was 5 years old. Jimmie Johnson, Harvick, all of those guys I watched and glorified as a little kid. Racing with the No. 48 car with Jimmie behind the wheel is pretty unimaginable, especially when it was early in the season. That was definitely cool.”

Kevin Harvick drives the No. 4 car and his looking for his fourth consecutive victory in the fall NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.

Harvick, driver of the No. 4 Hunt Brothers Pizza Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), has a 41-point lead over the Championship 4 cutoff position with two races remaining in the Round of 8 of the Cup Series playoffs, but a victory at Texas automatically advances him to the winner-take-all season finale at Phoenix International Raceway.

In 2017, Harvick arrived at Texas with a three point advantage over the cutoff but, with 10 laps to go in the race, he got by Martin Truex Jr., for the victory and advanced to the Championship 4. The next year, he came into Texas with a 25-point lead over fifth place but led 177 laps and beat Ryan Blaney on a late restart to score the victory to advance once again.

Last year, he came to Texas 14 points outside the cutoff, but he led 119 laps en route to his third consecutive fall victory at Texas and, once again, advanced to the Championship 4.

Harvick comes to Texas this year with the largest margin ahead of the cutoff he’s had entering the race since 2017, but he knows first-hand that a victory is the easiest way to advance. Win and you are in.

He has three wins, two poles, 11 top-threes, 23 top-10s and has led a total of 654 laps in his 35 career NASCAR Cup Series starts at Texas. But his last 12 races, all with crew chief Rodney Childers and SHR’s No. 4 team, have been outstanding.

He has finished in the top-10 in all 12 of those races with seven top-threes and two poles.

Harvick will once again have the support of Hunt Brothers Pizza, which has partnered with Harvick in NASCAR for 11 years and last visited victory lane with him when he won the 2018 NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Harvick has also won NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series races with Hunt Brothers Pizza as the primary sponsor at Texas and at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, both in 2011. The company also sponsored him in the non-points NASCAR All-Star Race in 2014 and 2015 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway. Harvick finished second in both races.

Hunt Brothers Pizza moved up to the Cup Series for three races in 2019 and five races in 2020.

With more than 7,800 locations in 30 states, Hunt Brothers Pizza is the nation’s largest brand of made-to-order pizza in the convenience store industry. Hunt Brothers Pizza offers original and thin crust pizzas available as a grab-and-go Hunk perfect for today’s on-the-go lifestyle, or as a customizable whole pizza that is an exceptional value with All Toppings No Extra Charge®. Headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, Hunt Brothers Pizza is family owned and operated with more than 25 years of experience serving great pizza to convenience store shoppers through its store partners. To find a Hunt Brothers Pizza location, download the Hunt Brothers Pizza app by visitingwww.huntbrotherspizza.com/app/

Harvick would like nothing better than to get to victory lane, for Hunt Brothers Pizza – and to clinch a spot in the Championship 4.

KEVIN HARVICK, Driver of the No. 4 Hunt Brothers Pizza Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing: 

You are going to Texas. How confident are you that you can get the job done and lock down a spot in the Championship 4?

“Just going to go race and do the things we do every week. You never know how these things are going to play out. Our car was plenty fast to win the race (at Kansas Sunday) and just came up one short.”

Seeing how you got to size up Joey Logano at Kansas, you have two chances to build up your points before heading to Phoenix, a track you’re really good at. How confident are you about getting some points in the bank as you get to Texas?

“I feel better about Texas than I did (at Kansas). Our guys did a pretty good job of bringing a whole lot better car than what we had at the first race. If our car’s that much better at Texas than it was the first race, it should be a good weekend. You just never know how the cautions are going to fall, the strategy, anything like that. You just have to go lap by lap and see where it falls.”

Given your points situation, are you looking at Phoenix or is it still focus on everything you have to do to clinch first?

“I think everything has been pushed into the pile already. All these cars are pretty much prepared throughout the next three weeks, with the travel to Phoenix, Texas, back to Martinsville. Everything is already prepared. I don’t think we would do anything any differently than what we have right now just because of the fact that it’s tough to change course right now because of where we are in the schedule and the logistics that have to go with that.”

You’ve gone on and won a championship before, been in these situations. How do you feel about this team from the year you won the championship? Is everything in place, and do you have the same confidence level you can make it all happen?

“I feel a lot better after (Sunday), getting out of (Kansas) with a good day, leading laps there. I feel good about that leading into Texas. I think as you look at Martinsville, I feel a lot better about it than what we were the first race. Obviously, the first race we had a whole bunch of problems with no fans, alternator, all the things that went wrong. We ran well at Phoenix. I think we just have to see how the chips fall in the next three races and see where it all ends up.”

Aric Almirola, driver of the No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), is looking forward to Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth. It’s a track he’s had circled on the 36-race schedule all year due to his recent success at the 1.5-mile track.

Almirola has earned three consecutive top-10 finishes at Texas and has led laps in each of those appearances. The 36-year-old has only finished outside of the top-10 once at Texas since joining SHR. Last November, Almirola led 62 laps and battled teammate Kevin Harvick for the win before earning a runner-up finish. It was his best finish at Texas and brought his average finish in the last three races there to 6.3.

“Texas is a track I had circled on the list this year,” Almirola said. “It’s a track that I have really become comfortable with over the years. Last year, we had an incredible run and came up just short of a win and we weren’t in the playoffs at that point. We’re in the same position this year and we’ve had a much better year. I’m really excited to see if we can keep it up front this weekend.”

In addition to his Cup Series experience at Texas, Almirola has four NASCAR Xfinity Series starts, all top-20 finishes with five laps led. He’s also made nine NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series starts at Texas with two top-10s and 14 laps led.

Almirola sits 13th in the playoff standings with 2,167 points. He is currently the second-highest-ranked SHR driver.

The No. 10 Ford driver’s six top-five finishes this year surpass his previous best of four in a season in 2018. In addition, his 297 laps led is a career high for a season, and his 17 top-10 finishes has tied his season best.

“It’s been a great year for us,” he said. “We wish circumstances could have been different at Talladega, where we had a shot to win or earn some good stage points and get us into the next round, but overall for the first year with a new crew chief and team, we have exceeded expectations. We’ve got three more races to earn a win at and cap off the season the right way.”

Smithfield Foods, Inc., which sponsors Almirola’s No. 10 Mustang for a majority of the races this season and will again this weekend, is an American food company with agricultural roots and a global reach. Its 40,000 U.S. employees are dedicated to producing “Good food. Responsibly®” and have made it one of the world’s leading vertically integrated protein companies. It has pioneered sustainability standards for more than two decades, including many industry firsts, such as an ambitious commitment to cut carbon impact by 25 percent by 2025. The company believes in the power of protein to end food insecurity and has donated hundreds of millions of food servings to neighbors in need. For more information, visit www.smithfieldfoods.com, and connect on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Almirola is back with season two of his documentary series Beyond the 10, where fans can get VIP, behind-the-scenes access by subscribing to his YouTube channel. Episodes showcase never-before-seen footage of Almirola at the racetrack, on family trips, and “A Day in the Life” during the week, as well as all that goes into a NASCAR Cup Series driver’s season. Click here to subscribe on YouTube and watch the latest episode.

Almirola can finish as high as fifth place in the final standings, which he did in 2018. He’ll race for his fourth consecutive Texas top-10 this weekend.

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

What is the most difficult thing to get right or figure out at Texas Motor Speedway?

“I think the most difficult thing at Texas is that it’s repaved and they changed the banking in turns one and two, and it’s just the speed you carry through the banked corner of turns three and four, and then you have to get slowed down for the flat turns one and two. That has made it very challenging. Then, the exit of turn two is very flat, so you’re carrying some speed there and the car just doesn’t have a lot of grip because there isn’t any banking.”

If you’re in the same position this year racing your teammate Kevin Harvick for the win, who is in the playoffs and racing for a spot in the Championship 4, would you race him any differently?

“Kevin and I raced each other clean last year and I would do the same this year. He’s my teammate racing for a championship. If I have the faster car, I’m going to do everything I can to win for my team, Smithfield and SHR, but he had the faster car on the long run and eventually passed me last time to win his way into the championship race. You want to do whatever it takes to win for your team as long as you don’t jeopardize a championship opportunity for your organization.”

Clint Bowyer might be one of the happiest men in NASCAR these days, but he does have a regret he wants to remedy Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.

With three races left in his 16-year NASCAR Cup Series driving career and just months away from embarking on a long-term deal with FOX to call races with Mike Joy and Jeff Gordon in the television booth in 2021, Bowyer is taking time to enjoy his final days as a driver.

“I’ve told people I really never knew the meaning of bittersweet until all of this happened,” said Bowyer, who announced his planned transition from the cockpit to the television booth on Oct. 8.

“You’re kind of sad to be stopping what you have been doing all your life, but it’s also been fun to think of the things to come and reminisce with everyone about all the good times we’ve had over the years.”

Last weekend at home-state Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Bowyer served as the virtual grand marshal of Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race, then was honored during pre-race ceremonies for Sunday’s Cup Series race in front of 10,000. Later Sunday, Bowyer logged a disappointing 26th-place finish in his final race at the track after an extra stop to fix damage during the closing laps race ruined what looked like a probable top-10 finish.

Bowyer makes his 30th and final appearance as a driver this Sunday at Texas, where he owns four top-five finishes and 12 top-10s in 29 starts. Bowyer’s No. 14 will carry the colors of cornerstone partner Rush Truck Centers, headquartered near San Antonio, and Cummins.

Rush Truck Centers has been the primary partner on the No. 14 team since Bowyer arrived at SHR in 2017 and has been with the organization since 2010. The team from Rush Truck Centers and Rush Enterprises, including company Chairman, CEO and President Rusty Rush, are regular race-goers supporting Bowyer and SHR.

Bowyer considers them to be among his closest friends.

“Everyone has been asking me the last two weeks if there is anything I wished I had done differently or better and things like that,” he said.

“As a racer, you always want to win more races or lead more laps. But the one thing I haven’t done that I really wish I could do is see Rusty Rush and all the Rush folks in victory lane. It’s funny over the years on the 14 car, no matter if Tony (Stewart) or I were driving, we’ve never been to victory lane with Rusty Rush. It was always one of our other partners on the car when we won. Rusty has been our staunchest supporter, so I really feel like we owe it to him.”

Bowyer can’t imagine a victory lane and post-win party with Rush in Texas.

“Here is the thing you need to know about Rusty,” he said. “Rusty flew to my house the night we won at Martinsville in 2018 and joined the victory celebration and stayed up all night with us. That shows you what kind of person he is and his dedication to this team. We only have a few more chances to do this and all of us would love nothing better than to deliver a victory for Rusty and all the Rush Truck Centers folks Sunday in Texas. God forbid we win Sunday in Texas, with Rusty, we might never make it home.”

Rush Truck Centers has used Bowyer and the team to appeal to NASCAR fans as one way to recruit the technicians it needs to operate the largest network of commercial truck and bus dealerships in the country, with locations in 22 states.

“Rush Truck Centers keeps our trucks and transporters in great condition, and you could argue those are the most important parts of our race team,” said Bowyer, who before COVID-19 normally spent time with Rush customers and guests each weekend.

“Without them, our cars never get to the racetrack. The employees of Rush Truck Centers are as detail-oriented as we are, and their technicians are the heartbeat of their dealerships. They play a critical role in the success of our race team.”

Cummins makes its fifth appearance of the 2020 season with Bowyer. The Indiana-based company from car owner Stewart’s hometown of Columbus is no stranger to victory lane with its racing lineage dating back to the inaugural Indianapolis 500 in 1911, when company founder Clessie Cummins was on the pit crew of the race-winning Marmon Wasp of driver Ray Harroun. Since its founding in 1919, the company now employs approximately 61,600 people and serves customers in about 190 countries and territories through a network of some 8,000 wholly owned and independent dealer and distributor locations. While Cummins is a corporation of complementary business segments that design, manufacture, distribute and service a broad portfolio of power solutions, it is best known for its diesel truck engines.

If Bowyer does earn that elusive victory for Rush Truck Centers and Cummins this weekend, it will go a long way to capping a career, as well as remedying one of his few regrets.

CLINT BOWYER, Driver of the No. 14 Rush Truck Centers/Cummins Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

Will we see less or more of you next year?

“Honestly, you’ll probably see a lot more of me, in general, throughout the first half of the season, especially. I’m looking forward to that, got a lot of cool things, some new things we’re going to see. I won’t be in the car, but I’ll be there to call the race, so looking forward to that. The second half of the season, man, I haven’t even thought about that so far. Obviously, we’ll still have a presence and still be working in the studio and stuff like that for FOX, Race Hub and things like that. That’s important to me. It’s not like you just leave and clock out, but it does enable me to take my family on a weekend and, I don’t know, go figure out I guess what normal people do. It’s been since I was 5 years old I’ve been in a motorhome at a racetrack somewhere, so we’ll have that opportunity to be able to take our family and do some new things. Cash has got a new Outlaw kart we’ve been working on. We’re about done with that. Looking forward to that and maybe taking him to a motocross track and to a race somewhere. It’s time to allow somebody else to have fun.”

Event:   Kansas Lottery 300 (Round 30 of 33)
Date:   Oct. 17, 2020
Location:   Kansas Speedway in Kansas City
Layout:   1.5-mile oval

Chase Briscoe Notes of Interest

•  The Kansas Lottery 300 Saturday at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City kicks off the Round of 8 in the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs. The penultimate playoff round encompasses Kansas and then Texas Motor Speedway Oct. 24 and Martinsville (Va.) Speedway Oct. 31. The top-four drivers after Martinsville compete in the Championship 4 at Phoenix, where the highest finishing driver is crowned the 2020 Xfinity Series champion.

•  Despite a 14th-place finish in his last visit to Kansas back in July, Briscoe proved to be a top-10 mainstay. The driver of the No. 98 Ford Performance Racing School Mustang started sixth in the 37-car field and was well on his way to a top-10 finish until he brushed the wall on the next-to-last lap while racing three-wide for sixth. Even with substantial damage to the right side of his No. 98 Ford Mustang, Briscoe was able to make it across the stripe as the last driver on the lead lap.

•  That 14th-place finish last July was one of three career Xfinity Series starts Briscoe has at Kansas. His best result was a third-place drive in October 2019 when Briscoe led twice for 33 laps and held the top spot until he made contact with the outside wall, forcing the team to pit for repairs with just 15 laps remaining.

•  Briscoe has one NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series start at Kansas in 2017. He finished fifth.

•  Kansas is the site of Briscoe’s final ARCA Racing Series victory, which was part of a six-win championship season where he scored 14 top-fives and 18 top-10s in 20 races. In the October 2016 Kansas 150, Briscoe started from the pole and led twice for a race-high 67 laps to secure the victory by 1.464 seconds over Austin Cindric – who he is currently battling in the Round of 8.

•  Briscoe is in the midst of his second straight playoff appearance. He finished fifth in the Xfinity Series standings last year, narrowly missing out on advancing to the Championship 4 and competing for the series title. He did, however, win the rookie-of-the-year award.

•  Beyond being the No. 1 seed heading into the Round of 8 and having a series-best eight wins, there are other numbers that bolster Briscoe’s championship aspirations:

•  Briscoe has already led 798 laps this season, 601 more laps than he led all last season.

•  Briscoe has already scored 15 top-fives, two more than he earned last year.

•  Briscoe’s average starting position this season is 6.7, an improvement over his 8.8 average starting position last year.

•  Briscoe’s average finishing position is 8.1, bettering his 8.2 average finishing position in 2019.

CHASE BRISCOE, Driver of the No. 98 Ford Performance Racing School Mustang:

You ran in the top-10 for nearly the entire race earlier this year at Kansas. Do you feel more confident about how the team will perform this weekend after having already raced at the track back in July?

“Our first trip there was one of the worst races of the year. We just missed the balance, but we’ve run well there in the past and we’ve come so far since then. I’m confident we will be good this time going back. We know we need to win early in this round and lock ourselves into Phoenix, but we can’t make any huge mistakes to give away our points lead, so we went back and found some things to work on for this race. We’re taking the car we won with at Vegas, so I feel really good about our chances of taking our Ford Performance Racing School Mustang to victory lane again.”

With the unknowns of Talladega and the Roval behind you, is the pressure of the next round of the playoffs any less?

“I think it’s a little bit less, only because you can control a little bit more of your destiny with the races in the Round of 8. With that said, there is still pressure anytime you’re in the playoffs. We want to be there at the end with a chance to compete for the championship, and this is the time when we have to get that done.”

Between Kansas, Texas and Martinsville, is there a race that you’re more worried about in this Round of 8?

“I would say I’m a little worried about Martinsville, just from the standpoint of having no practice and the Xfinity Series hasn’t run there in years. I’m nervous about the setup because once the race starts, you’re stuck with what you’ve got. Martinsville is a tough place, so it’s harder to adjust and figure it out with what you’ve got if you don’t have the right balance. I know my guys will do everything they can to get it where we need to be. Other than that, I’m confident about both of the mile-and-a half races, but I’m a little bit more about Kansas since we ran so well there last year in the playoff race.”

This weekend, Cole Custer and his No. 41 HaasTooling.com team for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) venture to the Midwest for Sunday’s 400-mile race at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City. The intermediate oval event marks Custer’s 36th career Cup Series start and his second at Kansas.

At last Sunday’s Roval 400 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, Custer started 28th, survived contact from a competitor that sent him spinning on the racing surface, and was able to recover by rallying to a ninth-place finish in his first Cup Series start on the “roval.”

The California native’s only previous Cup Series outing at Kansas was in July, when he started 24th and finished seventh. Custer started the final stage 22nd and was able to work his way forward to a top-10 despite a tight-handling Mustang.

Custer has four starts in the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Kansas with a best finish of 11th in October of last year. In total, the Ford driver has an average Xfinity Series starting position of 10.2 and an averaging finishing position of 22.8, along with 85 laps led. He has one NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series start at Kansas when he started and finished inside the top-10.

In his last nine starts at intermediate tracks, Custer has one win – Kentucky Speedway in Sparta – and one other top-10 to bring his average finishing position to 17.0 on the intermediate ovals.

Even though Custer is out of contention for this year’s Cup Series championship, he still has four more opportunities to capture his second win of the season. This weekend, a limited number of fans will be allowed to attend the 267-lap event while following socially distancing guidelines.

So far this season, Ford has won 17 races, and Custer and his SHR teammate Kevin Harvick have both earned wins for the Blue Oval – one for Custer and nine for Harvick. Ford’s milestone 700th win in the Cup Series came at the hands of Harvick on Aug. 23 at Dover (Del.) International Speedway. Ford captured its first victory on June 25, 1950. Ford drivers made up 50 percent of this year’s starting playoff field. SHR No. 4 driver Harvick, continues on to the playoffs Round of 8 which begin this weekend at Kansas.

With Custer’s Cup Series win July 12 at Kentucky, 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 70 starts at Kansas with three wins – team co-owner Tony Stewart in October 2009, and Harvick with wins in October 2016 and May 2018. SHR also has four pole awards, 13 top-fives and 27 top-10s at the Kansas track. In total, SHR has an average starting position of 14.7 and an average finishing position of 15.3 along with 837 laps led.

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 Tyler Reddick, he was the only rookie to clinch a playoff spot this season. Custer was the highest finishing rookie last weekend at the Charlotte roval.

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

How do you approach Kansas?

“Kansas is a tough racetrack. You have to move around and work the different lanes. You have to have the speed, as well, obviously. Track position is going to be huge and how you work the strategy is important. It’s a track where you have to put everything together.”

Do you think the intensity will be different at Kansas this time since it’s in the playoffs?

“I think the Kansas playoff race is kind of treated the same as any other playoff race. You have to make sure you can work the lanes good, and work them from the bottom to the top of the track. It’s one of those tracks in the playoffs where you’ll see the intensity go up and more aggressiveness on restarts and things like that. You have to race as hard as you would anywhere else on any given week.”

What has been the highlight of your season so far?

“It has definitely been the win at Kentucky. That pretty much changed my whole season and was pretty unimaginable. It’s my rookie season and there have been so many peaks and valleys, it seems like. I’ve had some good races to look back on and be proud of. There are some really bad ones that I’m not proud of. It’s just trying to level those out more to be more consistent and be in the top-10.”

What do you think about Clint Bowyer leaving SHR and going to the FOX booth?

“I think anyone who works in NASCAR or is a NASCAR fan, they want to have the experience of what it’s like to be up close and personal with Clint. He’s such a personality and people want to know if what they see is what he’s really like in person. To have that experience with him this year is awesome. He’s so outgoing, so energetic and it was also cool to see what he had to say about the cars, the advice he gives and things like that. It was cool to get that experience with him in his last year. Going into the booth, I think that’s a match made in heaven. He’s going to knock it out of the park. I think he’ll be as good as anybody in the booth.”

We’re on to the Round of 8 of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, and Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), knows what he has to do.

Win and he’s in – the Championship 4.

Harvick has a 45-point lead over the final four cutoff, but in 2014, 2017, 2018 and 2019, he won a Round of 8 race to automatically advance his team to the winner-take-all season finale.

And in an election year like 2020, maybe he could find victory the way our past United States Presidents have done – traveling by train, or specifically on the Ferdinand Magellan train car. That’s because, pre-airplanes, that’s how folks traveled. The Ferdinand Magellan was used by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1940s and 1950s. Ronald Reagan took it out of storage in 1984 for a trip though Ohio.

Harvick could start out at the train station in downtown Charlotte and ride the Ferdinand Magellan north on the Crescent Line to Charlottesville, Virginia, then switch to the Cardinal Route, which would take him through Cincinnati, Indianapolis and then to Union Station in Chicago. From there, he would switch to the Southwest Chief and hit Kansas City Union Station in preparation for this weekend’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City.

After Kansas, he could take the Missouri River Runner to Gateway Station in St. Louis, and then the Texas Eagle into Fort Worth Central Station for the 500-mile race at Texas Motor Speedway. After a brief stop in Fort Worth, he would continue on the Texas Eagle to San Antonio and then pick up the Sunset Limited to New Orleans, where the Crescent Line would then take him to Danville, Virginia, which is a short drive to Martinsville for the final race of the Round of 8.

With all that travel, let’s hope he has a Jimmy John’s sandwich or two to snack on.

Harvick enters Sunday’s race at Kansas with five poles, three wins, three second-place finishes, eight top-threes, 16 top-10s and has led a total of 864 laps in his 29 career NASCAR Cup Series starts at the 1.5-mile oval. He’s one of only three drivers who have participated in all 29 Cup Series races held there. The others are Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman.

Harvick is hoping the Round of 8 starts well – and gets him closer to the Championship 4.

KEVIN HARVICK, Driver of the No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing:

Thoughts on advancing from the Round of 12 to the Round of 8?

“This wasn’t a great round for us, so we definitely need to do better. We need to display that our cars are fast and do a good job on pit road and do the things we did all year. Definitely two good racetracks coming up for us with Kansas and Texas and hopefully we can get a win at one of those two racetracks and go on with it.”

Kurt Busch, Ryan Newman and you are the only drivers to start all 29 races at Kansas Speedway. You’ve been racing there since 2001. Can you talk about the track as it approaches its 20-year anniversary?

“It makes you feel old (laughs). I did one of the first PR days at Kansas Speedway when it first opened and there was not one single thing around that racetrack other than the highway. So, what’s been built has been neat to see and how it’s all developed and how it’s all changed. It’s a fun racetrack because there is just so much to do around the racetrack and it’s been a successful racetrack for us.”

Why have you been so successful there recently?

“I don’t really know. It’s a racetrack where I’ve won a couple races and, for whatever reason, it just kind of fits my style and what we do with the cars. We’ve had a lot of good racecars there to capitalize on the good characteristics that fall into my driving style and we’ve been able to have some good results with it.”

Take us on a lap around Kansas.

“It’s definitely a little bit different just for the fact the (corner) entries are a little different than at most places. Turns three and four remind me of turns three and four at Chicagoland Speedway, but there’s a lot more grip and fresher asphalt than what Chicagoland has nowadays. It’s a very high-speed racetrack. You run the middle to the bottom of the racetrack. But I’m sure, as time goes on, that the groove will move back up. But, for right now, it’s very fast and very sensitive to your line and, with all the speed and how tricky the entrance is into turn one, you can miss your line easily. So, you have to be very specific about where you put your car and pay attention to what you’re doing.”