Photo Credit; Ashley McCubbin
Cole Custer was not too pleased with the way John Hunter Nemechek raced him in the closing laps at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, but the JR Motorsports driver wasn’t surprised either.
“I was expecting it, kinda, because he’s raced a lot of people like that but it’s just a shame because it was a great chance to get into the Chase and he took it away from us,” Custer said.
Custer and Nemechek were racing for a win on the final laps of the race when things between the two got physical both inside and outside of the truck. Custer held the lead on the final lap, but was hit several times by Nemechek. The two door slammed all the way past the start-finish line, and it was Nemechek who picked up his second victory of 2016.
“Going into turn eight, I think it is, going down the backstretch into that corner, I had a car length or so on him,” he said. “Stayed about even, he might’ve closed up a little bit. Going into the second last corner, I drove pretty normal from what I had down in the past there the whole race.
“I guess he just drove in a little deeper, and hit us in the back. That just got us off line, and made me pinch the corner going into the last corner. Since I had to make a sharper corner, I had to slow down a little bit, and he just decided to run into me again. That turned us into the wall, and then he hit us again in the door. That sent us into the wall,” Custer continued.
After the race was over and Nemechek was declared the winner by NASCAR, Custer jumped over the pit wall, and ran full speed towards Nemechek. Custer went in for the tackle, and the two came tumbling to the ground. The scuffle was quickly broken up, but Custer admitted he could have made a better tackle on Nemechek.
“I played freshman football, but that was definitely my biggest problem – I wouldn’t get low enough,” Custer laughed. “I wasn’t expecting him to duck at the last second.”
As far as racing goes, Custer is now put in a position where he needs to win the next race at Chicagoland Speedway, or he won’t make the Truck Series’ version of the Chase. Custer maintains retaliation against Nemechek won’t be on his mind, but that doesn’t mean he’ll race Nemechek any easier.
“I’m just not going to give him any breaks, really,” Custer said post-race. “If he decides to do anything or if he makes my day any harder than it has to be, I’m just going to voice my opinion, I guess. That’s about it.”
