Season’s Best Finish Eludes Custer in Canada

Cole Custer, driver of the No. 00 Haas Automation Chevrolet Silverado for Haas Racing Development (HRD), started fifth and finished ninth in Sunday’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Chevrolet Silverado 250 on the Canadian Tire Motorsport Park road course in Bowmanville, Ontario. It was Custer’s fourth consecutive top-10 result in the Truck Series in his sixth start of the 2014 season. He finished eighth last weekend at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.

The 16-year-old Californian was running fourth and in position to race the leaders en route to his best finish of the season when, on a restart after the day’s first of two caution periods with 13 laps to go in the 64-lap event around the 2.459-mile, 10-turn circuit located 90 minutes north and east of Toronto, polesitter Alex Tagliani made a bold inside move on the fast, sweeping right-hand turn three and spun Custer’s Chevrolet racetruck off the track. Custer was able to continue but Tagliani, the Canadian veteran open-wheel racer, spun on his own two turns later and brought out another caution.

Custer was 12th on the ensuing restart with seven laps remaining but rallied to pick up three positions before the checkered flag flew.

Custer, who is running a nine-race Truck Series schedule for HRD in 2014, maintained his position in the top-five through the race’s first round of scheduled pit stops. He was fourth when he came down pit road for four tires and fuel on lap 12 and was back in fourth when the rest of the field cycled through scheduled stops by lap 18. He inherited third on lap 26, then second on lap 30 when the day’s second and final round of scheduled pit stops commenced ahead of him on lap 30.

Three laps later, Custer made a nifty inside move on leader German Quiroga Jr., to take the lead for the first of two circuits before pitting himself. On that lap-35 pit stop, a tire got away from Custer’s pit box during the four-tire change and fueling, necessitating a pass-through penalty on lap 36 that sent Custer all the way back to 12th place. Mass pit stops ensued by the rest of the field and Custer was able to hustle his racetruck around the track and emerge in sixth place with 25 laps remaining.

Custer’s best Truck Series finish this season was sixth from the pole at Gateway International Raceway near St. Louis in mid-June. He was third-fastest in final practice Friday before qualifying in the top-five Saturday for the fifth consecutive time in Truck Series competition. 

Ryan Blaney won the Chevrolet Silverado 250 to score first victory of the season, his third victory in 45 career Truck Series starts, and his first at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

Quiroga finished behind Blaney in the runner-up spot while Erik Jones, Gray Gaulding and Andrew Ranger rounded out the top-five. Matt Crafton, Brennan Newberry, Johnny Sauter, Custer and Timothy Peters comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were two caution periods for six laps with four drivers failing to finish.

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