LONG POND — Cole Custer led the final 18 laps Saturday to capture the checkered flag in the ARCA Series ModSpace 125 at Pocono Raceway.
Custer is the 17-year-old driver from California who made headlines last year by winning the Camping World Truck Series race at New Hampshire, becoming the youngest driver in NASCAR national touring series history to win a race (16 years, 7 months, 28 days).
NASCAR’s minimum age requirement is 18 in the Sprint Cup and Xfinity Series. For the Truck Series, it is 18 for oval tracks more than one mile in length, and 16 for road courses and tracks 1.1 miles or less. That’s why Custer had to sit out the Pocono Mountains 150 Truck Series race at the 2.5-mile triangular track Saturday. Kevin Harvick instead drove the No. 00 Chevrolet for JR Motorsports, which is co-owned by Dale Earnhardt Jr., his sister Kelley and Rick Hendrick.
However, Custer took full advantage of ARCA’s minimum age rule of 17 at tracks more than one mile in length to become the ninth first-time series winner this season.
Custer is now the youngest superspeedway winner in ARCA history at 17 years, 190 days. He surpassed Chase Elliott, who won at Pocono in June 2013, by two days.
“This definitely is a prestigious place to win at,” Custer said.
Points leader Grant Enfinger wound up second despite being one of five cars involved in an opening-lap crash triggered when Kyle Weatherman, another 17-year-old who started third, spun in Turn 2.
Pole-sitter Frank Kimmel, Tom Hessert and Matt Tifft were also collected.
“Kyle just got loose in front of Frank,” Enfinger said. “I saw it all happening, so I got out of the gas and got hit from the back. It was just one of those racing deals. We came in and changed tires and it kind of changed our balance. We had a good set of tires on there in the beginning. That hurts us a little bit.”
Matt Kurzejewski of Mansfield finished third.
But when he made his lone pit stop on Lap 24, he changed only two tires. His Chevrolet didn’t run as well after that.
On a restart on Lap 32, Custer was able to get past Kurzejewski for what proved to be the winning move.
“When everybody started wrecking in Turn 2, I was already low, so I was able to avoid it,” Custer said.
With his finish, Enfinger padded his lead in the standings from 70 points to 180 with six races remaining.