“He Was Not Helpful” – Tony Stewart’s Xfinity Champion Cole Custer Reveals His Biggest Influence in Racing

As far as the NASCAR Cup Series goes, 2023 is a year that Tony Stewart would want to forget. But when it comes to the Xfinity Series, the NASCAR legend couldn’t be any prouder. Cole Custer got the job done in Phoenix as he won the final race of the season and the Xfinity Series title. The 25-year-old champion recently revealed one of his biggest racing influences but had some interesting words to say about them.

As far as Tony Stewart is concerned, Cole Custer was the only positive that he can take from the 2023 NASCAR season. His team’s Cup Series run was far below par this year. Now with Kevin Harvick retiring, it will be a hefty task to replace the legend. However, at the end of the day, Custer brought a smile to the three-time Cup Series winner’s face who will be hoping for more of the same in the years to come.

Cole Custer reveals disappointing first meeting with career influence

Cole Custer has a great many influences in his racing career but one of the biggest ones is a man who is only a few years older than him. On a recent episode of the Door Bumper Clear podcast, the 25-year-old spoke about his time in the K&N Series where he met the racer who he would look up to in the future.

That man is none other than Brandon McReynolds. McReynolds and Custer were teammates for the 2014 and 2015 seasons of the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West for Bill McAnally Racing. The 32-year-old was in great form back in 2015 as he won two K&N races that year. However, when Cole Custer went to talk to him, the current SHR man was not too pleased.

“I was teammates with Brandon in K&N a little bit when we ran for McAnally kind of a little bit, so, I’ve known him for a long time. Actually, the first time I ever spoke to him was at Dover running in K&N and he was kind of the guy there at that point,” Custer revealed on a recent episode of Door Bumper Clear.

“So my crew chief was like, go talk to Brandon and he was not helpful whatsoever. He was like, yeah, get on the gas, you’ll figure it out. That’s useless to me right now,” the 2023 Xfinity Series champion added.

The Stewart-Haas Racing star was a proud man at the end of Saturday’s proceedings in Phoenix. Custer’s story is a bit similar to that of Ryan Blaney. Both had to deal with a bit of a struggle at the beginning of the season, only to finish it off in the best way possible.

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At the end of the race, Cole Custer was exhausted yet ecstatic. He expressed his heartfelt gratitude for his team’s efforts to get him to the top. The 25-year-old used to be in the Cup Series for SHR but was demoted by the team in 2023. And boy, has he responded.

“Man, I can’t say enough about these guys. We started the year off and it was a struggle and we had to kind of dig deep with each other, really talk about how to get better and to see how much this group has grown through the year,” the driver of the #00 said.

All’s well that ends well as far as Custer and Stewart-Haas Racing are concerned. They will be raring to get going next season as well but now is the time for some much-deserved celebrations. Tony Stewart may well have his eyes set on the 25-year-old again for a permanent seat in the Cup Series in the future.

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