Information By: ASHLYN SISKE / STEWART-HAAS RACING – NASHVILLE, TN
STEWART-HAAS RACING
Tennessee Lottery 250
Date: June 29, 2024
Event: Tennessee Lottery 250 (Round 17 of 33)
Series: NASCAR Xfinity Series
Location: Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway (1.333-mile, concrete oval)
Format: 188 laps, broken into three stages (45 laps/45 laps/98 laps)
Race Winner: John Hunter Nemechek of Joe Gibbs Racing (Toyota)
Stage 1 Winner: Ty Gibbs of Joe Gibbs Racing (Toyota)
Stage 2 Winner: John Hunter Nemechek of Joe Gibbs Racing (Toyota)
SHR Race Finish:
● Riley Herbst (Started 9th / Finished 6th, Running, completed 188 of 188 laps)
● Cole Custer (Started 2nd / Finished 9th, Running, completed 188 of 188 laps)
SHR Points:
● Cole Custer (1st with 632 points)
● Riley Herbst (5th with 514 points, 118 out of first)
SHR Notes:
● Herbst earned his eighth top-10 of the season and his fourth top-10 in four career NASCAR Xfinity Series starts at Nashville.
● Herbst has never finished outside the top-10 at Nashville.
● This was Herbst’s third straight top-10. He finished second on June 15 at Iowa Speedway in Newton and eighth last Saturday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon.
● Herbst finished seventh in Stage 1 to earn four bonus points and 10th in Stage 2 to earn one more bonus points.
● Custer earned his 14th top-10 of the season and his second top-10 in two career NASCAR Xfinity Series starts at Nashville.
● Custer has not finished outside the top-10 at Nashville.
● This was Custer’s fifth straight top-10. He finished sixth June 1 at Portland (Ore.) International Raceway, ninth June 8 at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway, sixth June 15 at Iowa Speedway in Newton, and third last Saturday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon.
● Custer’s ninth-place finish equaled his previous best finish at Nashville – ninth, earned last June.
● Custer finished fourth in Stage 1 to earn seven bonus points and third in Stage 2 to earn eight more bonus points.
● Custer led twice times for 64 laps to increase his laps-led total at Nashville to 96.
Race Notes:
● John Hunter Nemechek won the Tennessee Lottery 250 to score his 11th career NASCAR Xfinity Series victory, his second of the season and his first at Nashville. His margin over second-place Chandler Smith was .366 of a second.
● There were three caution periods for a total of 17 laps.
● Twenty-three of the 38 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap.
● Custer remains the championship leader after Nashville with a 15-point advantage over second-place Chandler Smith.
Sound Bites:
“I’m hot. Hopefully, I’ll go to the infield care center and get a couple bags of fluid and then go to sleep in 30 minutes and hop in a Cup car for 400 miles and try to go learn. That’s the goal tomorrow and just make all the laps. The goal is to finish on the lead lap and just learn, learn, learn. These Xfinity cars are fun at Nashville. It’s about the challenge. I know when Kevin Harvick ran these cars a few years ago, he thought they were extremely hot and mentioned it to NASCAR and they got the rear slots to put in this year. That kind of hurt us aerodynamically. We’ve been struggling with that a little bit, but I don’t know what I would have been like if I didn’t have the slots. I appreciate Kevin and everybody who pushed for it.” –Riley Herbst, driver of the No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang Dark Horse
“We just need to keep digging. We’re right there, but I just don’t know where we’re missing it honestly. We’re just really close every weekend. We just don’t quite have enough. I’m sure there were a few things I could do better and we’ll look back on it, but we definitely need a win now. We need to start trying to click off some wins, so we’ll keep digging.” –Cole Custer, driver of the No. 00 Haas Automation Ford Mustang Dark Horse
Next Up:
The next event on the NASCAR Xfinity Series schedule is the The Loop 110 on Saturday, July 6 at the Chicago Street Course. The race begins at 3:30 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by NBC and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.