KANSAS CITY, Kan. — It didn’t take long for Cole Custer to zero in on the source of his wrath after Saturday’s (Sept. 28) NASCAR Xfinity Series race.
“You drove me like a f—ing clown!” Custer declared as he walked toward Chandler Smith on Kansas Speedway’s pit road, after Custer had finished second to Aric Almirola and Smith had placed third.
Custer had been spurned with 45 laps left in the race, with Custer leading and Smith charging from second.
Smith’s No. 81 Toyota swept below Custer’s No. 00 Ford as the two cars raced out of turn 4. Smith, apparently thinking he was clear, moved up in front of Custer.
But he wasn’t clear.
“You put me in the f—-ing fence when I was on your right rear,” Custer informed Smith.
“When did I put you into the fence?” Smith asked, oblivious to what had transpired.
“Just know, I’m going to race you like a clown if you race me like a clown,” Custer declared, as he started walking away.
“When did I put you into the fence?” Smith repeated.
“It’s over,” Custer said, waving off the Joe Gibbs Racing driver.
With each passing interview, Custer stayed to true to his wrestling sponsor, NXT on The CW, and began cutting promos by repeating variations of his “clown” line
By the time Smith talked to reporters, he hadn’t seen a replay of the incident with Custer, saying “I definitely didn’t put him in the fence.”
“I’ll have to go back and watch the replay,” Smith said. “I was watching my mirror the whole time. I could feel him when he would get a really big run. I could feel him, the air right on the right-rear quarter panel. And every time I felt it, I checked to see if he was there. And he was extremely close every time, pretty much on my bumper. But he never got completely there.
“And if he did, I’ll shout out to him and apologize, tell him ‘thank you for not right-rearing me.'”
Being forced into the wall didn’t hurt his car, Custer said.
“No, just the track position,” Custer said. “(Smith) doing that just made me get into dirty air and then trying to get back by him just hurt my tires up.”
It weakened Custer’s efforts to hold off Almirola in the closing laps.
After putting up a fight, Almirola got by Custer for the lead with three laps to go.
It kept Custer from winning two consecutive races and launching the Xfinity Series playoffs with a victory ahead of next weekend’s race at Talladega Superspeedway.
“I think we would have been able to hold (Almirola) off if we didn’t have to do that,” Custer said of his battle with Smith, which lasted for about 14 laps before he finally re-took the lead. “But I understand it’s hard racing, but I don’t race like that, so I don’t expect to get raced like that.
“But now that (Smith) raced to me like that, I race him like that.”
Custer said there really wasn’t any negative history between him and Smith prior to Saturday’s race.
“I think it’s just a trend in the whole series and NASCAR really,” Custer said. “People just run you in the fence. So I’m over it.”
Despite his issue with Smith, Custer was “feeling really good” about his second-place finish.
“That’s all you can really ask for, is to have a shot at it,” Custer said. “So that’s a real testament to our team, what we can do and move on to the next one.”
Daniel McFadin is a 10-year veteran of the NASCAR media corp. He wrote for NBC Sports from 2015 to October 2020. He currently works full time for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and is lead reporter and an editor for Frontstretch. He is also host of the NASCAR podcast "Dropping the Hammer with Daniel McFadin" presented by Democrat-Gazette.
You can email him at danielmcfadin@gmail.com.