Cole Custer
Cole Custer has collected wins and records befitting drivers twice his age, with the 26-year-old winning in every NASCAR division in which he has competed.
The driver of the No. 00 Haas Automation Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) has gone from racing quarter midgets in 2002 to winning in the elite NASCAR Cup Series in 2020 to being the reigning NASCAR Xfinity Series champion in 2024.
Custer’s path to NASCAR began when he was just four years old and it came in open-wheel racing. From 2003 to 2011, the Ladera Ranch, California-native traveled the country earning numerous wins and championships in weekly quarter midget races across a variety of series. He graduated to United States Auto Club (USAC) Midgets and Legend Cars in 2010 and, the following year, won 15 races in 22 starts on his way to winning the 2011 USAC National Focus Young Guns Championship.
Custer’s winning ways continued in 2012 when he began racing late model stock cars at age 14. He won three races to become the youngest late model winner, which began with his first career start at I-10 Speedway in Blythe, California.
In 2013, Custer turned his attention to the NASCAR K&N Pro Series, a developmental league regionally split into two divisions – K&N Pro Series East and K&N Pro Series West. Custer ran the entire East Series schedule while also competing in two West Series races. He again displayed his talent behind the wheel, scoring three poles and earning two wins. He logged five top-five and seven top-10 finishes in 16 starts to bring home eighth in the East Series championship standings.
The 2013 season brought some specific accolades, too. On Aug. 2 at just 15 years, 6 months and 10 days, Custer became the youngest winner in Pro Series history by taking the checkered flag at Iowa Speedway in Newton. He did it in style, qualifying on the pole and leading every lap in the annual East/West combination race. In addition to breaking Dylan Kwasniewski’s youngest race-winner’s age record by nearly six months, Custer also became the first driver to lead every lap in the combination race. Custer’s second Pro Series victory looked a lot like his first – he won from the pole in the series’ September visit to New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, leading 60 of the 105 laps available.
When NASCAR announced that the minimum age requirement for drivers in the Craftsman Truck Series would be lowered from 18 to 16 on road courses and on tracks 1.25-miles in length or shorter, Custer seized the opportunity to grasp another rung on the racing ladder. In 2014, Custer continued to compete in the Pro Series while running a limited Truck Series schedule driving the No. 00 Haas Automation entry for Haas Racing Development (HRD).
Another year in the Pro Series brought another batch of victories – a win from the pole in February at Phoenix Raceway and a triumph in April at Richmond (Va.) Raceway. Augmenting his Pro Series success was a strong debut in the Truck Series, with Custer earning two poles, a win, two top-fives and six top-10s with 150 laps led in just nine starts.
Even with only a nine-race sample, Custer’s first Truck Series endeavor proved record breaking.
In just his third Truck Series start on June 14, 2014 at Gateway Motorsports Park in Madison, Illinois, Custer set the record as the youngest pole winner in national touring series history at 16 years, 4 months and 22 days.
His first Truck Series win came Sept. 20 at New Hampshire in just his seventh start. At 16 years, 7 months and 28 days, Custer started from the pole and led three times for a race-high 148 laps to secure a dominating victory, becoming the youngest race winner in NASCAR national series history.
In 2015, Custer moved to JR Motorsports (JRM) where he continued to compete in a limited Truck Series campaign. He earned his second career Truck Series victory at Gateway in June, a pole at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway in October, and secured two top-fives and four top-10s. He also made three starts in the ARCA Menards Series where he continued to break records. In just his third start, Custer drove to victory Aug. 1 at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway, becoming the youngest superspeedway winner in ARCA history.
The 2016 season started off on a high note as Custer won the pole for the season-opening ARCA race Feb. 12 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway. Custer, who turned 18 just a few weeks prior, broke yet another record in becoming the youngest pole winner in ARCA history at Daytona.
Finally able to compete full-time in the Truck Series, Custer returned to the No. 00 Haas Automation truck for JRM where he ran for the rookie-of-the-year title, earning five top-fives and 14 top-10s. And taking a page from previous seasons, Custer simultaneously dabbled in the Xfinity Series with an eye on advancing to that series fulltime in 2017.
Custer made five Xfinity Series starts in 2016, debuting with a sixth-place finish at Richmond in May and earning a best result of fourth in his second race later that month at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway.
When SHR announced in late July that it was forming an Xfinity Series team to develop drivers and team personnel for its NASCAR Cup Series teams, Custer was a natural choice.
Custer began 2017 as an Xfinity Series rookie, but by the time the season ended with the Ford EcoBoost 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, he looked like a veteran. Custer led three times for a race-high 182 laps to set a record for the most laps led in a single Xfinity Series race at Homestead. He earned a perfect driver rating (150.0) by sweeping both stages of the race and took the victory by a whopping 15.405 seconds. It was the culmination of an impressive season that included seven top-fives and 19 top-10s with 301 laps led, and it set the stage for an even stronger second-year effort.
After missing out on the Championship 4 in 2017 by a scant four points, Custer secured his place in the Championship 4 in 2018 with a tenacious victory Nov. 3 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth. Custer came into the season finale at Homestead intent on winning the Xfinity Series title, and he nearly did, sweeping the race’s first two stages and leading a race-high 95 laps before finishing second to race winner and champion Tyler Reddick. Custer ended 2018 with double the amount of top-fives (14) and seven more top-10s (26) compared to his 2017 campaign. And while he fell short in the drivers’ championship, Custer delivered the owners’ title to SHR.
The floodgates opened in 2019 with Custer amassing a career-high seven wins and six poles. Those numbers were augmented by 17 top-fives and 24 top-10s and a total of 922 laps led. Custer ended the season second in the championship standings for a second-straight year.
Custer was promoted to SHR’s NASCAR Cup Series program in 2020 and in just his 20th career start, he won. On July 12 at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, Custer wheeled the No. 41 HaasTooling.com Ford Mustang from fifth to first on the penultimate lap to earn his maiden Cup Series victory. In addition to being the first rookie to win a Cup Series race in four years, the triumph secured Custer’s spot in the 16-driver NASCAR Playoffs and earned him the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series rookie-of-the-year title. The win also made Custer one of just 10 drivers who have won a race in all three of NASCAR’s national touring series – Cup, Xfinity and Truck – as well as ARCA and a NASCAR developmental series (K&N Pro Series).
Custer returned to the Xfinity Series in 2023 intent on claiming that long sought championship. In the season finale Nov. 4 at Phoenix Raceway, Custer emphatically vanquished the sting of finishing runner-up in the 2018 and 2019 title chases by taking the race victory and earning the series crown.
“Earned” was the key word in securing the championship. Custer held off Justin Allgaier in a two-lap, overtime shootout that saw Custer, Allgaier and John Hunter Nemechek race three-wide on the next-to-last lap around the 1-mile oval. Custer was able to pull away on the final lap by diving low through the track’s dogleg as Allgaier and Nemechek banged doors on the outside. Custer’s third win of the season and the 13th of his career finally delivered his first Xfinity Series title.
Custer resides in Cornelius, North Carolina, with his wife, Kari.
