Cole Custer and Sam Hornish Jr. made it a Ford 1-2 finish in the Ford EcoBoost 300 Saturday afternoon, while Chase Briscoe won his first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Race in the Ford EcoBoost 200 to close out the season at Homestead-Miami Speedway Friday night.
“Congratulations to Cole and Chase on their first career wins in their series this weekend,” said Doug Yates, President and CEO of Roush Yates Engines. “We’re very proud to have powered the Ford Mustangs and Ford F-150 trucks this season as part of the Ford Performance team. Racing has a bright future ahead with drivers like Cole and Chase and we’re excited for the 2018 season.”
Custer dominated the race in the No. 00 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Mustang recording his first win in the NASCAR XFINITY Series. Custer’s win is the ninth NXS win of the season for Ford Performance and the first in history for Stewart-Haas Racing. Custer is the 36th different driver to win a NXS race with Ford.
“We knew we were gonna be really good this weekend, but our Haas Automation Mustang was unreal,” said Custer in victory lane. “We really wanted to have a good showing at Ford Championship Weekend. We obviously have some good cars in the hunt, but everybody at Haas Automation, Code 3, Roush Yates Engines — the engines have been unbelievable all year — XFINITY, everybody at NASCAR, it’s just been unbelievable.”
Sam Hornish Jr. drove the No. 22 REV/Fleetwood Mustang to a second-place finish, giving car owner Roger Penske his fourth series owner’s championship in the last five years. A Mustang has now won at least one championship in six of the seven years it has competed full-time in the NASCAR XFINITY Series.
Briscoe, the No. 29 driver of Brad Keselowski Racing edged out Christopher Bell for the win in the NASCAR CWTS, marking the first by the Ford Performance driver. The No. 29 led a race high 77 laps of the 134 lap race and recorded his fourth pole of the season.
“This is a long time coming. I’m so proud of all these guys. Thank you so much to Ford for believing in me. I know that this year, at least by my standards and what I felt like I could have done, for those guys to continue to believe in me makes me feel so blessed and thankful to be here,” said Briscoe in victory lane.
To add to the celebration, Briscoe was named NASCAR Camping World Truck Series 2017 Sunoco Rookie of the Year on Friday.
Teammate Austin Cindric finished fifth and ended up third in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championship.
The Ford Championship Weekend wrapped up on Sunday. Kevin Harvick from Stewart-Haas Racing finished fourth and Brad Keselowski from Team Penske seventh in the Ford EcoBoost 400. After a tough fought race, the duo ended up third and fourth respectively in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Championship.
We look forward to the start of the 2018 season at the Daytona International Speedway.
RYE PR
