Cole Custer the Future of Stewart-Haas Racing

Even though all is pretty much perfect right now at Stewart-Haas Racing, it seems a huge change between now and February will affect SHR’s future.

Reports have been circulating that Kurt Busch is expected to leave the No. 41 ride at the end of the season (and possibly sign with Chip Ganassi Racing). Busch himself confirmed that he has not signed with anyone as of this writing while his one-year contract with SHR nears its end.

Nothing’s official yet, but I’ll go for it. Enter Cole Custer!

Custer, driving for SHR’s NASCAR Xfinity Series team, is in the midst of a crowded points battle and while he has zero wins to his name in 2018, his consistent top 5 and top 10 finishes are beyond promising.

Custer finished 5th in the 2017 Xfinity Series standings, notching his first ever series win at the season finale at Homestead. All signs point to Christopher Bell being this year’s William Byron, but Custer has already shown signs he can be successful in NASCAR’s premier series.

Custer would be SHR’s first actual Xfinity Series graduate, further bucking SHR’s trend of scooping up disgruntled veteran drivers and renewing their success (Ryan Newman, Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer, Busch, etc.). Like Hendrick Motorsports’ grooming of Chase Elliott, Alex Bowman and William Byron and Joe Gibbs Racing’s similar grooming of Erik Jones and Daniel Suarez, SHR would be playing the long-term game with Custer.

The short game has been more than generous to SHR, which has nine victories to its name this year alone. Sooner than later, you had to know they would get on the young drivers wagon too. After all, Harvick won’t be around forever.

While Busch hasn’t had a woeful season (he’s 4th in the regular season standings, 9th in playoff seeding), his one-year contract with SHR should have told everyone his time with the team was meant to be short-lived. How he’ll fare with Ganassi (probably replacing Jamie McMurray) is yet to be seen.

Custer would get his Monster Energy Series start in arguably the strongest team in the series today should he move up in 2019. We’ve seen others squander such riches in years past, but I’m in the camp of Custer being more of an asset than a liability.