Friday night at Bristol Motor Speedway, Cole Custer got the miracle he was looking for and earned the NASCAR Xfinity Series Regular Season Championship with a win.

His next goal? Converting that into his second straight title in November at Phoenix Raceway before returning to the NASCAR Cup Series in 2025.

MORE: Xfinity Playoffs standings | Kansas schedule

The 2023 Xfinity champion won this year’s regular-season crown after eliminating a 43-point deficit to Justin Allgaier, whose hopes were dashed after two incidents while running inside the top five plummeted him to a 30th-place finish, 10 laps down.

Custer has proven throughout his career he doesn’t need to rely on luck for success, emphasized in the Arizona desert 10 months ago. But the last two months have been feast or famine for the No. 00 Stewart-Haas Racing team. In the eight races since and including Pocono Raceway on July 13, Custer has two wins, two runner-ups, a 21st-place result and three finishes of 30th or worse as results of DNFs.

“We’ve just got to keep doing what we’re doing,” Custer said Tuesday during a NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoffs Media Day teleconference. “And at the same time, just trying to stay clean. I feel like we’ve had really fast cars that can go run up front every weekend. We’ve just had a lot of stupid stuff happen the last month and a half. So Bristol was a race where we turned that all around, was able to have a really fast car and get a win. So hopefully, we can take that into the playoffs and have a good first round.”

There’s also more sentiment pushing the No. 00 team this year as Custer heads back to Cup to drive the No. 41 Ford with the rebranded Haas Factory Team in 2025, and Stewart-Haas Racing, as it’s known today, will cease to exist.

“I’m really excited about the Cup car next year and getting that opportunity again,” said Custer, who earned his first Cup win at Kentucky Speedway in 2020. “But these guys that I’ve raced with in the Xfinity Series with this 00 team has been unbelievable. So to get to do this with these guys and compete for another championship and just look back at the things we’ve accomplished really means a ton. So I can’t thank them enough and hopefully we can put this all together and end it out strong.”

Sheldon Creed hopes to turn runner-ups into title run

Thirteen times. That’s how often Sheldon Creed has finished second in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and yet the driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota is still searching for that elusive first win.

Perhaps, though, Friday’s runner-up to Cole Custer — whose No. 00 Ford will be piloted by Creed himself in 2025 — was Lucky No. 13. Creed, whose 13 second-place finishes are most in series history without a victory, also now has 13 top-five finishes this year — most of any driver this season. And a championship run is not out of the picture: Former JGR driver Daniel Hemric wheeled the No. 18 Toyota to an unlikely title in 2021 with a last-corner bump-and-run on Austin Cindric at Phoenix to score his first career win and claim the Xfinity title in one nudge.

“Obviously, Daniel and others have proved that you can point your way in there and then win the championship,” Creed said. “I think Matt Crafton did it [in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series] in 2019. So it is possible. You have to be really consistent, really good to do that, which I do think we have the consistency and speed as we’ve shown the last two, three months. So I don’t want to bank on that, I guess. Obviously, I want to be consistent these next seven races, but I would really love to win in this first round, win stages so our points are up, and would love to go win Vegas or Homestead and have an off weekend for Martinsville [in the Round of 8].”

Despite his strong results this year, Creed, the 2020 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion, still enters the Xfinity Series Playoffs three points beneath the provisional elimination line, the first driver on the outside looking in due in part to a significant lack of playoff points since the No. 18 Toyota won just a single stage this year.

“Yeah, we’ve won one stage,” Creed said, alluding to the single playoff point that provides him entering the postseason. “I think the 7 car [Justin Allgaier] has won 14. So that’s 14 points more that he’s starting with. So stages pay a lot. I think I finished fifth in regular-season points, and the similar cars in front of us just scored way more stage points than we did, and then we probably have more finishes better than them. So they just pay a lot, maybe too much, in some scenarios.

“So yeah, that’s definitely a main focus is stage wins and and top-five stage points to get to the next round. Like you said, we’re negative three, which is three spots in a stage. So it’s definitely doable. Everyone’s going to be good. We start with 12, so two guys aren’t going to point in the stages. So it’s going to be really important this first round to capitalize on that.”

Kligerman ready for one last championship chase

Parker Kligerman announced Sept. 12 that he will step away from full-time NASCAR racing following the 2024 season, meaning the driver of the No. 48 Big Machine Racing Chevrolet has one final chance to earn a national series title and make this playoff appearance count.

Kligerman enters the postseason for the second straight year, this time last of the 12 drivers and sitting 12 points under the provisional line in the Round of 12. But with Kansas Speedway, Talladega Superspeedway and the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course on his path to the Round of 8, the 34-year-old brings with him a heaping helping of optimism. The No. 48 Chevrolet was fourth at Kansas a year ago, and Kligerman owns one top five and two top-10 finishes in three of his last four Talladega starts — including a sixth-place finish way back in 2013. He also finished sixth at the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course in his track debut a year ago.

“I think that these three tracks are great for us, so there’s I think a high level of confidence that, as long as we execute and just do what we’ve done, we should be in a pretty good position,” Kligerman said. “I know we’re starting 12 points down, but I really think that’s such a tight situation. I mean, just look at Daytona. We had a 38-point or 40-point swing on the (elimination) line that day. And you look at Allgaier and what happened to him at Bristol this past weekend. I think it’s a huge opportunity.

“We don’t have to do anything spectacular. But I do believe Talladega is one that we circle as, OK, let’s go win that. And then, obviously, the Roval is taken care of then.”

Kligerman also has three top fives and five top 10s in the past nine races dating back to the Chicago Street Course in July. With momentum in hand after finishes of second and seventh at Atlanta Motor Speedway and Watkins Glen International, respectively, in recent weeks, the Big Machine Racing group is thriving on being underestimated. Much of that stems from the team’s youth, entering the stage in 2021 and qualifying for its first driver postseason a season ago, with Kligerman and its first owners’ title chase this year.

“I think it’s natural to see Big Machine Racing, and then up against Joe Gibbs and JR Motorsports and Stewart-Haas and that sort of thing, and to think, OK, that’s a different name than I’ve seen here,” Kligerman said. “But I think we have all the capability to go out there and make a run in these playoffs. And I think internally, we have the confidence, kind of like we alluded to this first round. To me, there’s no reason that if we just perform at the level we’ve been performing, that we shouldn’t be able to advance. And I think right now, we’re still in the top five of average finish through the whole season of Xfinity teams. So we’ve really performed a high level. And so I think putting aside being a young team and that sort of thing, we have all the expectations to make the Championship 4.”