Cole Custer will make his only scheduled appearance in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East for 2015 when the circuit visits Watkins Glen (New York) International for the Bully Hill Vineyards 125 on Friday.
The teenager from Ladera Ranch, California will drive one of three Bill McAnally Racing entries in the event on the historic 2.45-mile road course.
Custer will be behind the wheel of BMR’s No. 00 Carlyle Tools/HAAS Automation Toyota, teaming with Nick Drake in BMR’s No. 15 NAPA AUTO PARTS Toyota. They will be joined by NASCAR Whelen Euro Series driver Eddie Cheever III, who will be making his series debut in the No. 99 BMR Toyota.
The Watkins Glen race is the first of two road course events on this year’s 14-race schedule. The series races at Virginia International Raceway on Aug. 29.
Custer’s shot at his first career road course win came up just short in last year’s series event at The Glen. He made his move for the lead coming to the checkered flag, but skidded into the sand barrels at the entrance to pit lane and ended up 16th. Drake notched a 10th-place finish as a rookie in last year’s race, despite losing second gear in his transmission.
Custer raced a full season in the K&N Pro Series East as a 15-year-old rookie in 2013, scoring two wins. Since then, he has competed in limited races in the East and West divisions of the K&N Pro Series, while also racing select events in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. At 17 years of age, he can only run limited events at the national level because of NASCAR’s age restriction on racing at bigger speedways.
A member of the NASCAR Next program that spotlights NASCAR’s rising stars, Custer has made the most of his opportunities in the truck series – where with a win at New Hampshire Motor Speedway last year he became the youngest winner in NASCAR national series history. He’s already been to Victory Lane in the series this year, winning at Gateway Motorsports Park in June, in one of five starts he has made on the circuit this season.
He set additional records Saturday with a win in the ARCA Racing Series event at Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania, becoming the youngest Pocono winner and the youngest ARCA superspeedway winner.
Custer – who has four wins in 27 combined East and West starts overall in the K&N Pro Series – ran a K&N West road course event in June, finishing ninth at Sonoma (California) Raceway after starting at the back of the pack.
Drake, 19, of Moorseville, North Carolina, is eighth in the championship standings in the K&N Pro Series East, with one top-five and five top-10 finishes in nine starts this season.
Cheever, who lives in Rome, is the son of the 1998 Indianapolis 500 winner, Eddie Cheever Jr., who came up through the European open-wheel ranks to run Formula One. The younger Cheever was taking the same path with formula cars in Europe until he changed course to focus on racing stock cars in the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series.
He has four wins and three poles in the Whelen Euro Series, where he finished third in the championship standings last year and is second in points this year.
The Watkins Glen event, the 10th on a 14-race series schedule, will be televised on NBCSN on Aug. 13. It will be the 16th standalone series race at the historic venue.
BMR PR
