Riley Herbst Faces Uncertain Future Despite Xfinity Phoenix Win and Strong Season

• Stewart-Haas Racing, minus team co-owner Tony Stewart, will morph into Haas Factory team in 2025.

• Riley Herbst, a 25-year-old Xfinity Series racer for SHR, said he has no idea what lies ahead for his career.

• Herbst led seven times for 167 laps, his first laps led at Phoenix en route to the win in the season-ending race on Saturday night.

Riley Herbst, who was not a Championship 4 driver in the Xfinity Series, closed his fourth and final season with Stewart-Haas Racing with the victory in the category’s championship race at Phoenix Raceway.

Normally, a driver ending the campaign on a high note is looking for a seamless transfer of momentum to the next season. But that’s not what Herbst is facing in the offseason. Stewart-Haas Racing, minus team co-owner Tony Stewart, will morph into Haas Factory team in 2025. And the 25-year-old racer said he has no idea what lies ahead for his career: “I don't know. I'm excited. I'm nervous. I don't know what's going to happen.”

The No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang Dark Horse driver knows what impact the organization has had on him.

“It has been a really tough week this past week at the shop,” he said, paying respect to “a lot of really emotional people. There was a lot of crying people in that race shop. This place has been home for a lot of good people for a long time. And it has built me into who I am the last four years. I am grateful to every man and woman at Stewart-Haas Racing.”

He said his team “gave me a really fast car today [Saturday], and we capitalized on it. I can't thank Monster Energy enough and everyone on the 98 team. They deserve to win. That is a championship-caliber team and crew chief. I wish we could have cleaned some stuff up over last summer, but I am proud of these guys and we will see what next year has.”

Herbst expounded on his personal and professional growth, saying, “I’ve said it multiple times: I knew I could be here. I knew I could do this. Everything in life is just hard work. And I definitely didn’t start out how I wanted to. It was embarrassing there for a few years, and I was just really, really struggling. But I got around really good people – Tony Stewart, Richard Boswell, Davin Restivo, Kevin Harvick—and they told me to get to work, and they told me what I needed to work on. And we did that.

"Now, we’re starting to see the fruits of our labor. Every year at Stewart-Haas Racing, I felt like, has been such a big improvement. I've grown so much. I'm a completely different race car driver than when I walked into Greg Zipadelli's office four years ago about this time. I'm excited of who I've become, and I'm excited for what's ahead and how far more I can grow and I can achieve and how much better I can be.”

Gnawing at Herbst, though, is doubt from his unspecified detractors.

“A lot of people—I'm not going to say names, but a lot of people—say that X driver is the future of the sport, and now I have the same number of wins as him. I don't know how people can discredit me now.

"One win, I get it: one-win wonder. A second win, sure they can still do that. But now I'm matching people's win totals. I'm matching people's win totals in the Cup Series that were in the Truck and Xfinity Series and they're doing really good on Sundays."

I'm just curious to see what they'll say. I'm not going to respond to them, but it's just interesting to see how it progresses after each win. But it fuels me. I'm excited. I'm so much better than I was last week. I'm so much better than I was last year, four years ago, 2020 when I hopped into the 18 car, not knowing nearly anything.”

Herbst didn’t disclose names of his critics.

“They all know where they are. I've heard the podcasts. I've seen the comments. I've seen Twitter. I've seen it all. They know who it is. I know who it is,” Herbst said. “This is the championship race. I would assume all 36 cars brought their best stuff. The final five brought the really, really best stuff, the new spec motors, all that stuff, and we beat them. I don't know what to tell you about that. So we'll see what online has to say about that.”

The satisfaction of capping the year with a victory, he said, was “not even just for Tony. It’s for the 300-plus employees. It was validating to win for myself, to win for Davin [crew chief Restivo] and everybody on the 98 team, but [for] all the men and women at the shop who don't get the notoriety and they work 9 to 5 every single day of the week, even the off-season. Those guys mean the most to us, and this win is just as much theirs as it is mine. I'm excited for all of them and to go out on top.”

Herbst led seven times for 167 laps, his first laps led at Phoenix.

Cole Custer, who lost his bid for back-to-back championships Saturday night in Xfinity Series action, said, “There have been a lot of memories with Stewart-Haas Racing. We just wish we could have ended up with a championship for SHR. But it just wasn't meant to be on those restarts."

Custer drove the No. 00 Andy's Frozen Custard/Haas Automation Ford Mustang Dark Horse. He finished eighth in Saturday night's Xfinity Series finale, and second among Championship 4 racers to finish second in the points championship to Justin Allgaier.

“It came down to that restart with the 21 and some guys staying out on older tires, Custer said. "We just got bottlenecked behind them, and the 7 was able to slip by. I have to say congratulations to Justin and all those guys. They definitely deserve it. Justin is a very deserving champion. He’s been working hard at this for a long time and I’m happy that he finally got it. It definitely stings for our team. I hate that it comes down to tire strategies and things like that, but it was a great race for us. We executed a great race, but it just didn’t work out. Everybody was racing hard, but it just sucks to run second,” Custer said.

Custer is set to drive for the Haas Factory Team in the Cup Series in 2025.