Looking at 2023 for Ryan Preece and Cole Custer

On November 16th, 2023, Stewart-Haas Racing announced that Ryan Preece would be in the 41 Cup series car for the 2023 season.  As a result, Cole Custer will be in the 00 Xfinity series car for the 2023 season.  Ryan Preece had previously been the SHR reserve driver, while also competing in select events.

While Kevin Harvick’s KHI management represents Ryan Preece, it is well known that Harvick was upset that SHR did not pursue Kyle Busch enough.  Harvick also stated that Custer had done nothing wrong.  Tony Stewart wanted to give Preece another chance in the Cup series, and ultimately, this is the direction in which SHR went.  In this article, I will attempt to look at the upcoming season for each of these drivers.  I will also provide analysis of their past performance, which of course, led to the current situation.

Custer’s Last Stand?

Cole Custer was able to get a win at Kentucky Speedway in his rookie season, 2020.  This helped him finish 16th in points during his rookie season.  In 2021, Custer finished 26th in points.  Finally, in this past season, 2022, Custer managed to finish 25th in points.  Other than that single win and his Rookie of the Year award from the same year, Custer’s cup level performance has been lacking.

While Cole Custer has under-performed in the Cup Series, his Xfinity stats are an entirely different story.  Cole Custer’s first full season in Xfinity was driving the 00 car for SHR in 2017.  During this season, Custer had 19 top tens, 7 top fives, and 1 win.  The win came in the season finale at Homestead.  Custer finished 5th in the points in 2017.

The 2018 Xfinity series season saw a huge improvement in performance for Cole Custer.  Custer had 26 top tens, 14 top fives, and 1 win.  He also managed to get 6 poles in 2018.  His only win came in the fall race at Texas Motor Speedway.  Ultimately, Custer would make the championship 4 and finish second in the final points standings in 2018.

While the 2018 Xfinity season was a great one for Custer, 2019 would be his best season yet.  His total number of top tens fell to 24, but his top fives increased to 17.  Furthermore, Custer’s total number of wins during the season climbed to 7 in 2019.  Once again, however, Custer would finish runner up in both the season finale and championship standings.

Looking at Cole Custer’s stats for both the Cup series and Xfinity series, this move definitely looks like a good move for SHR.  In 110 Xfinity races, Custer has 75 top ten finishes, 41 top five finishes, and 10 wins.  Furthermore, his average finishing position is 10.8.  When we compare this to his Cup series stats, we see a really big difference in performance.  For example, in 111 Cup races, Custer has just 12 top tens, 2 top fives, and 1 win.  His average finishing position is only 20.5.

Ryan Preece’s Second Chance

Ryan Preece has raced a total of 115 Cup series races.  In those 115 races, he found little success.  He has 9 top ten finishes and 2 top five finishes.  Preece has never found victory lane in the Cup series.  His average finish is 24.1.

In 2019, 2020, and 2021 Preece raced for JTG Daugherty Racing.  Preece was signed to SHR as a reserve driver for the 2022 season and also raced two cup races for Rick Ware Racing.  He has never finished higher than 26th in cup series points.

Preece has found success driving part time in the Truck series.  In 2021, he raced in two races for David Gilliland Racing.  He won a race at Nashville and finished 9th at Pocono.  Preece also drove a part time schedule for DGR in 2022.  Out of 10 races in 2022, Preece collected 9 top tens, 7 top fives, and won again at Nashville.  In his 12 total Truck series races, he has an average finish of 4.7.

Finally, Preece also ran a total of three Xfinity series races in 2022 for B.J. McLeod Motorsports.  He had two finishes in the top ten, one of which was a top 5.  His average finish for the three races was 9.0.  If we look at his overall career in the Xfinity series, in 62 races he has 21 top tens, 13 top fives, and 2 wins.  His career average finishing position in the Xfinity series is 17.4.

Conclusions

Stewart-Haas Racing has had a couple of rough seasons in 2021 and 2022.  It is difficult to say if Custer would have had more success in the Cup series had he arrived a few years earlier.  We can most definitely say that Kevin Harvick had a lot more success prior to the parts freeze that went into effect at the end of 2020 and subsequent switch to the next gen car in 2022.  What is clear, however, is that Custer has been very successful in Xfinity.  Therefore, I must conclude that this will be a good move.  Custer will be able to mentor upcoming drivers for SHR and Ford in the Xfinity series.  Furthermore, with the upcoming possible retirement of both Harvick and Almirola, much like Preece, he may earn another shot at Cup racing.

As for Ryan Preece, it is difficult to say whether or not he will be successful in the 41 car.  He definitely has some career momentum on his side.  JTG Daugherty Racing isn’t at the same competition level as Stewart-Haas Racing.  While Stewart-Haas Racing has struggled a little over the past couple of seasons, they have won races each year.  In all honesty, it could be argued that JTG Daugherty Racing would have considered the past two SHR seasons as successful seasons.

Stewart-Haas Racing seems to be recovering from their 2021 low point.  In 2022, Kevin Harvick was the only driver to win back-to-back races in the next gen car.  Chase Briscoe won at Phoenix and finished 9th in points.  They definitely aren’t where they were in 2020, but they too have some momentum on their side.  Combine their momentum with Ryan Preece’s momentum and he may well have a breakout year in 2023.

There are concerns for both Custer and Preece.  The 00 Xfinity series ride will be returning to competition for the first time since 2019.  That could be problematic for Custer and possibly keep him from doing as well as he did back in 2019.  As for Preece, the 41 car has a total of 7 wins for SHR going back to 2014.  The 41 team’s highest points finish was 7th back in 2018 with Kurt Busch.  Since then the 41 team has only finished in the top 20 in points in two seasons, 2019 and 2020.

I believe it will be easier for Custer to succeed in the 00 Xfinity series car than it will be for Preece in the 41 Cup series car.  Then again, I could be wrong.  Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.