Cole Custer calls Chicago Street Race victory 'wildest win' of his career

In a wild turn of events NASCAR called the Xfinity Series Chicago Street Race and Cole Custer was declared the winner. During the start of the weekend, Custer was the top of the Xfinity field. He was great in practice, took the pole award in qualifying, and didn’t give up that lead through the few laps that were raced.

Despite the race being two laps short of halfway, which makes a NASCAR race official, NASCAR decided to call the race to prepare for the Cup Series event. It seems as though officials are trying to stay on Chicago’s good side by avoiding a Monday race if they possibly can.

Given this is the first year of the Chicago Street Race, maybe it is in everyone’s best interest to avoid a longer stay than needed.

Cole Custer called this the “wildest win” in his career after he was named the victor.

“The wildest win I’ve ever been a part of,” Custer said to NBC. “For sure. This is definitely not the way we want to get it, we want to run all the laps, we want to win it the proper way. At the end of the day [inaudible] we’ll take it how it comes.”

"The wildest win I've ever been a part of."

Hear from #NASCARChicago @XfinityRacing winner, @ColeCuster. pic.twitter.com/uzSxiSOnke

— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) July 2, 2023

Always with a smile on his face, Custer was more than happy to have this win. While it was a rain-shortened race, he is the first-ever winner of the Chicago Street Race Course. Stewart-Haas Racing will gladly take that historic win home with them.

Cole Custer grabs the win after storm delays

It really is a shame we didn’t see The Loop 121 go the full length. This was shaping up to be an interesting race. While Cole Custer was outpacing the field at the time, it felt like things were going to change soon. John Hunter Nemechek had a fast Toyota Supra. However, it didn’t work out that way.

We saw in practice how these NASCAR drivers slowly figured things out. Some didn’t do it slowly, either. They did it rather quickly and began to shave time off of their laps with every turn of the course.

There were wrecks and spins. However, that’s street course racing. The paths are narrow and you are running right up against the walls for the most part. You make a little contact with that wall and it can ruin your day.

With the Xfinity Series race over, let’s hope we get a full 220 miles of racing in the Cup Series. There has been a lot put into this event and we need something we can point to at the end of it that went right. Denny Hamlin sits on the pole and the green flag is going to drop shortly after 5:00 PM EST on NBC.