Cole Custer battled tooth and nail for what seemed like an eternity with Chandler Smith for the race lead late in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway. And at the end of it, Custer would get around Smith with 10 laps remaining, but he had used his stuff up getting around Smith, and a couple of laps later Aric Almirola would get by and cruise to his second Xfinity win of the season.
After the race, Custer exited his No. 00 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse and confronted Smith, who drives the No. 81 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota GR Supra, on pit road. Custer was mad, and told Smith that he raced him, “Like a clown.”
Custer has a few words for Chandler.#NASCAR pic.twitter.com/zaMhBeEgfF
— Eric Estepp (@EricEstepp17) September 28, 2024
Following the altercation with Smith on pit road, Custer explained the The CW broadcast team that the issue he had with Smith stemmed from a late-race restart, where he was put into the wall by Smith. Custer vows that he’ll race Smith differently for the remainder of the year.
"He's gonna pay the consequences."@ColeCuster (P2) talks about the battle with the No. 20 at the end of the race. pic.twitter.com/2NQkZCcK6e
— NASCAR Xfinity (@NASCAR_Xfinity) September 28, 2024
“Oh yeah, it killed us,” Custer said of battling Smith for the lead at the end of the race. “You know, definitely burned our stuff up trying to get by him. It really made me mad when he put us in the fence on that restart. He’s going to pay the consequences for that, and I’m going to race him like he races me.”
Custer says that he wasn’t in any mood to hash things out with Smith after the race, he was simply trying to let Smith know that he could expect revenge.
“No,” Custer said when asked if he was trying to talk to Smith. “They’re going to pay the consequences. Everybody always wants to try and talk afterward, but at the end of the day, he put me in the wall and he’s going to pay for it.”
Smith seemed confused as to why Custer was mad other than the fact that he was extremely difficult to pass over the final run of the race.
“I definitely understand his position. Last week, I was racing behind someone for 80 laps and couldn’t find a way around them because we were running in the same lane,” Smith explained.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver continued to defend the way he raced Custer by saying it was a race for the win, and advancement in the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs.
“Had to come up with a gameplan of when he gets to me, what do I gotta do? Because last time I just kept running my lane, and he blew my doors off,” Smith explained. “So, this is for the race win, this is for advancing to the last round, and this is also the guy I’m racing for the championship. I’ve got to be a little more aggressive in the sense of taking his air away.”
They didn’t see eye-to-eye on the track, and after the race they didn’t see eye-to-eye based on their interviews. While Smith doesn’t feel like he did anything wrong, his competitor feels he did, and now, Smith may have to face the consequences for that down the line.
