Cole Custer knows a thing or two about making the most of what he’s handed, and 2025 is testing that talent like never before. Once a Stewart-Haas Racing prodigy turned Xfinity Series champion, Custer is now leading the charge for the newly minted Haas Factory Team. In theory, the HFT is a new organization, but they have yet to carve out their path.
It is a herculean effort to build a racing program from scratch, which is why we see teams like 23XI Racing and Trackhouse have an alliance with big brother teams. Although Haas Factory Team has a similar equation with RFK Racing, they still rely on the program and the infrastructure built by Stewart-Haas Racing. Custer didn’t shy away from accepting this and explained what the process looks like for his team to transition into an era with the history of SHR attached to their racing project.
Cole Custer is using all the help his team can get
There’s a lot of hard work that has gone into this. Custer and his crew chief, Aaron Kramer, have been compiling an extensive notebook, tracking insights from the transition from SHR to Haas Factory Team. He says, “We have a lot of notes to look at. I’m not going to lie on that. It’s just a matter of for what our cars currently are right now and what our team currently is right now. It’s, you know, there’s a lot of moving parts. You know, we have different simulations than we had last year and different tools to work with. So it’s there’s a lot of different moving parts, that it’s not as simple as just plugging one thing in and hoping it works.”
SHR, a power-packed operation with 70 cup wins and two championships since 2009, officially shut down after the 2024 season. But even as SHR closed its doors, a blueprint was passed on. Gene Haas retained a single Cup charter, backing Custer’s return to the top tier in what would become the Haas Factory Team. These comments don’t just show progress; they reveal how deeply Custer is digging into translating SHR’s engineering and competitive DNA into his own campaign.
Cole Custer talks about building a notebook with crew chief Aaron Kramer during the first half of this season. That made me wonder if they have any applicable notes from the transition of SHR to Haas Factory Team. What Custer said: @NASCARONFOX pic.twitter.com/HJXmv4yM12
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) June 19, 2025
On a very positive note, Cole Custer is determined to shift gears in his performance. He goes on to say, “You know, we actually kind of found that out at the start of the season. So you really have to tailor it around your team because everything is all new people, all new tools. So we’re really having to work through that stuff. And I think we’re starting to get in the flow of things halfway through the year here.”
Under Kramer’s guidance, the No. 41 team is treated as a “pseudo fourth car” within RFK Racing’s technical alliance. That means access to data, wind tunnels, simulation—everything Custer needs to shape that SHR-infused package with Haas’s new setup. Yet, as Custer points out, even with these advantages, success isn’t automatic. It’s about adapting the old into a new team mindset, and he’s already feeling the shift, which even involves shifting from the SHR way of doing things.
Well, the 2025 season has been a steep climb for Custer and his team. Placed 34th in the playoff standings, they will need a win to book their seat in the postseason. Custer’s best finish, P8, came in Mexico City and with the current dynamics, a road course win or a wildcard superspeedway race could be his best bet to the playoffs.
Custer preps for Tricky Triangle redemption
While the road courses and drafting track could seal Custer’s ticket to the playoffs, he isn’t banking only on those wildcard races. The HFT driver has shifted his focus to the tricky triangle, Pocono Raceway, to build on the momentum he created in Mexico. But, he knows that his team will need to be on their toes to get a solid points days this weekend.
“You have to have everything working. You have to have a good strategy, good pit stops, and a great car that can work in all three corners. The driver has to be on their game because it’s a tough place to get around with how fast it is and how flat it is, so you just have to really be 100 percent in every single area,” he said to Peter Strata. Yet, despite the challenges, Custer has some history on the track that is fueling his optimism.
Luckily, Custer isn’t walking in Blind. His best cup finish here was 16th back in 2020. And he has two wins at the track in the Xfinity Series, the latest one coming just last year while he was driving in the Xfinity Series. Custer backs himself up, saying, “I’ve won a couple Xfinity races there and an ARCA race, but I feel like it’s always a place that challenges you that you can always do better. You don’t ever feel like you leave that place and did an absolutely perfect job because it’s so hard to really hit perfect laps around that place every single time.”
All Custer needs is a single win, and it would reset his entire season in a snap. Shane van Gisbergen did just that. So do not rule him out just yet, as he might pull off a big upset and add more chaos to the playoffs race.
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