NASCAR: One possible replacement for Cole Custer

While Cole Custer’s future at Stewart-Haas Racing is uncertain beyond the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season, there is only one driver who has emerged as a possible replacement.

Cole Custer is suddenly facing an uncertain future in the NASCAR Cup Series, as Stewart-Haas Racing co-owners Gene Haas and Tony Stewart reportedly disagree on who to put behind the wheel of the #41 Ford for the 2023 season.

Custer has driven the car since his rookie season in 2020, but he has been largely unimpressive aside from his lone victory at Kentucky Speedway that year. He hasn’t finished higher than seventh place in 91 starts since.

With that being said, the 24-year-old Ladera Ranch, California native wasn’t initially believed to be on the hot seat, since Stewart-Haas Racing team executive Joe Custer is his father.

But now it’s clear that he is.

Gene Haas wants to keep Custer behind the wheel of the #41 Ford for what would be a fourth season. Tony Stewart does not.

However, this “open seat” isn’t exactly open to anybody, as there is only one driver whom Stewart has in mind to replace Cole Custer next year: Ryan Preece.

Preece signed with Stewart-Haas Racing as their official reserve driver ahead of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season, and he made select starts in all three national series (Cup Series, Xfinity Series, and Truck Series) this year with Stewart-Haas Racing-affiliated organizations.

When Aric Almirola announced that he planned to retire at the end of the 2022 season, it was believed that Preece would take over behind the wheel of the #10 Ford next year. Although Almirola has since signed a multi-year extension with the team, Preece could still very well find himself in Stewart-Haas Racing’s lineup in 2023.

What makes this decision between Custer and Preece even more interesting is the fact that Stewart-Haas Racing are prepared to lose Kevin Harvick after the 2023 season, and while Almirola signed a multi-year extension, there is a growing possibility that the 2023 season will actually end up being his last.

If the team aren’t confident in Custer, why not replace him now? If they end up needing to replace him after the 2023 season anyway, they would need to make three driver changes in a single offseason. By signing Preece, they’d already be looking toward the future.

One would think that the smart money would have to be on Preece at this point, since it’s not often you have multiple sources reporting on a possibility such as this one this late in the game. Plus, Custer has not done much — some would even say nothing — throughout the 2022 season to make a case for a return.

You could even make the case that making the switch to Preece is a safer option than sticking with Custer. Preece has more Cup Series experience than Custer and posted similar results during his time with a less competitive team in JTG Daugherty Racing from 2019 to 2021.

However, it may be worth mentioning that in the 2019 season, Daniel Suarez felt confident that he would be back behind the wheel of the #41 Ford in 2020, and Stewart himself was a big fan of making that happen. It was Haas who ultimately had the final say and promoted Custer from the Xfinity Series to the Cup Series, giving Suarez the boot after just one season.