Cole Custer's return to the NASCAR Cup Series has been lackluster so far

One of the stories that got lost in the noise of the NASCAR offseason was Cole Custer's return to NASCAR's top division with Haas Factory Team. Eight races into the 2025 season, it's hard to blame fans if they forgot that the 27-year-old is racing on Sundays again. 

To be fair to Custer, Haas Factory Team is a team made up of whatever Stewart-Haas Racing — a team in sharp decline when it closed its doors at the end of 2024 — left behind, as SHR co-owner Gene Haas retained one Cup Series charter that eventually became HFT. Custer isn't working great equipment or the best crew in the sport, but his lack of results has still been relatively disappointing. 

Through the first eight races of 2025, Custer has only accrued a total of 77 points. His best finish was a 21st-place result in the season-opening Daytona 500, where Custer inadvertently caused 'The Big One' that sent Christopher Bell hard into the wall and caused Ryan Preece to briefly go airborne. 

Sunday's Goodyear 400 at Darlington brought a 22nd-place finish for Custer, his best non-superspeedway result of the season. 

It's been a humbling year for the 2023 NASCAR Xfinity Series champion, who won five Xfinity Series races over the last two seasons and nearly won another Xfinity Series title in 2024. 

After a stellar run in the Xfinity Series from 2017-19 that saw Custer win nine races, he moved up to the Cup Series in 2020. A win at Kentucky in July earned him a playoff berth, but 2021 and 2022 seasons only yielded points finishes of 26th and 25th, respectively. 

That sent Custer back down to the Xfinity Series, where it seemed as if he regained his confidence and earned another chance in the top division. 

So far, however, confidence in Custer appears to be misplaced. There's plenty of time for the No. 41 team to turn things around, but said turnaround needs to happen sooner rather than later if Custer is to make any sort of postseason run.