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Cole Custer: 2025 NASCAR Driver Profile

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | Last updated Jan 31, 2025 5:09 PM ET

[Editor’s note: The following article is from Athlon Sports’ 2025 Racing Annual magazine. Order your copy online today, or buy one at retail racks and newsstands nationwide.]

After a demotion to the NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2023, Cole Custer accomplished everything needed to get a second chance in the Cup Series two years later.

He and the No. 00 team were out front almost every week, filled with opportunities to win far more than the five checkered flags they took home in that division. Custer won the 2023 championship and finished second to Justin Allgaier last November.

Now, Custer is back in the premier series with a familiar ride, a familiar sponsor, a familiar number, and familiar personnel – but it’s not with the team he called home for his entire career.

Also see: Athlon’s 2025 NASCAR driver profiles

Instead, Custer is driving a No. 41 Ford sponsored by Haas Automation and fielded by SHR’s successor: Haas Factory Team.

Cole Custer 2024 Xfinity Series stats

Starts	Wins	Top 5s	Top 10s	Poles	DNF
33	2	14	23	3	4

SHR’s closure came as a shock, but team owner Gene Haas elected to remain involved in NASCAR with his Haas F1 Team COO Joe Custer’s son behind the wheel.

It will be an uphill climb for the new group in year one, and the No. 41 team will have to rebuild a former top-tier program that is suddenly far removed from its glory days. There will be rough showings at the track and frustrating days to start out the year; before pairing with Tony Stewart and, at the time, Chevrolet in 2009, Haas earned just one top-5 finish in seven years as a solo Cup owner.

His biggest asset is Custer, now a 27-year-old veteran with a Cup win (Kentucky, 2020), a Xfinity title, and over 300 hundred races worth of experience in NASCAR’s three top touring series. He’s a far more polished driver than the 22-year-old prospect that first went Cup racing with SHR in 2020. That said, the California native has only 12 top 10s and a grand total of 29 laps led in the Cup Series.

Custer’s Xfinity crew chief Jonathan Toney won’t make the jump with him to Cup. He’ll work instead with Aaron Kramer, the former lead engineer for RFK Racing’s No. 17 team. Kramer was a key piece to RFK’s resurgence, as Chris Buescher and his former team have scored five wins and strung together three consecutive winning seasons in the Next Gen car.

Cole Custer career stats

Years	Starts	Wins	Top 5s	Top 10s	Poles
5	117	1	2	12	1

2025 shapes up to be a pure developmental year for Kramer and Custer that lays the groundwork for the future. Every new team starts somewhere, and this single-car outfit will need a multi-year process to build. It also helps there is minimal pressure on Custer to immediately put up results; it’s a family-run operation with dad Joe holding most of the cards. The ability to develop chemistry without the threat of demotion will serve Custer well in his second full-time Cup tenure.

Just don’t expect much from the single-car HFT effort just yet. This new operation starts as a field-filler and must prove it’s a true contender.

The Cole Custer file

Car: No. 41 Ford

Team: Haas Factory Team

Crew chief: Aaron Kramer

Years with current team: 5

Best points finish: 16 (2020)

Hometown: Ladera Ranch, California

Born: Jan. 23, 1998

Scouting report

Anonymous takes from drivers, crew chiefs, and assorted industry insiders:

“Cole completely reinvented himself when he got sent back to the Xfinity Series,” a broadcaster says. “He is a more complete driver than he was the first time he was here (in Cup) and he is better off having had the gut punch.”

The biggest question mark is just how competitive the team will be.

“They lost three additional cars-worth of data and don’t have the same kind of relationship with a manufacturer as before,” says one journalist. “This is basically a return to the days of the old Haas CNC team before Tony Stewart got there and turned it into a championship threat. It’s kind of bare bones and I just don’t know how much Cole will have to work with. It’s a shame, because this version of Cole Custer could have won a lot of races in the heyday of Stewart-Haas Racing.”