Kevin Harvick Sympathizes With “Underrated” NASCAR Driver, Predicts Grim Future in the Cup Series

While Stewart-Haas Racing has completely ceased operations following the last season, the Haas Factory team has held onto one Cup charter and appointed Cole Custer as their driver for the upcoming Cup season. But despite Custer’s commendable performances in the Xfinity Series, Kevin Harvick expressed reservations about the team’s prospects in Cup Racing on his podcast, Harvick’s Happy Hour.

On his show, the 2014 NASCAR Cup Champion remarked, “Cole’s a great race car driver. I think Cole is underrated just because of his arrangement with Gene Haas and his dad (Joe Custer; Team President of Haas Factory Team) and everything that comes with the things that he’s been granted along the way from support. But that’s not his fault. He’s earned it.”

Expanding on his thoughts about how the Haas Factory Team might fare this season, Harvick noted, “I don’t think that they’ll have the same infrastructure that they had; only having one team… I know that they have an alliance set up but I think it’ll be interesting to see how they perform because I don’t think it’ll be as good as what it was.”

Cole has shown good skills throughout his Xfinity career. He finished second in the last season and won the championship in 2023. In five years of full-time competition in the Xfinity Series, Custer consistently excelled, securing second place three times and landing in the top-5 once.

However, his transition to the Cup Series did not mirror this success when he made a jump into the NASCAR top tier for a few years. During his three full-time seasons from 2020 to 2022, Custer only managed a single victory and his highest finish in the driver standings was P16 in 2020.

Since stepping back from full-time racing, Custer has participated in six Cup starts during the 2023 season but struggled to make a big impact, with his best finish being P24. Given his mixed results with the Next Gen cars, Custer’s performance will be closely watched and is going to be a point of considerable interest throughout this year’s Cup season, especially for the Haas Factory Team.