Cole Custer, driver of the 00 Haas Automation Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing, advanced to the Championship 4 in dramatic fashion on Saturday at Martinsville Speedway. He spoke about the chaotic final lap afterwards.
COLE CUSTER, 00 Haas Automation Ford Mustang – “It’s just Martinsville and everybody is just desperate. It’s just one of those deals. The 18 is trying to get his way in. The 2 is trying to get his way in. Everybody is just trying to get all they can get and we had nowhere to go. The 21 got spun and I had nowhere to go and we all stopped there. I saw Austin trying to fire up his car and I was like, ‘I’ve got to get going here,’ so I put it in reverse to try to get across the line. I’m sorry Doug Yates. We were not easy on his engine today, but luckily he builds great engines that are very durable and it ran great today. I can’t thank my guys enough. They’ve worked so hard and just have gotten better and better throughout the year. I’m so glad that this is over. All throughout that red flag my heart was beating out of my chest just wondering what was gonna happen, but it’s just amazing to be in the final four and have a shot at it. I can’t thank Tony Stewart, Gene Haas, Haas Automation, Ford Performance, Roush Yates Engines, everybody at the shop has just been awesome getting this deal better and better. They’ll have one coming. I think we’ll have something for them at Phoenix.”
WERE YOU ANTICIPATING THAT LEVEL OF CHAOS? “No. You’re just hoping it goes smooth. At the start of the race we were overheating the motor and then the volts started going down, and then radio one went out under that red flag, so we had to switch to radio two, so just a lot of little things that get your heart rate up a little bit, but we were able to stay calm and do what we needed and get to the final four. I’m really proud of the day we put together. We got really good stage points, came from behind and still got in.”
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