Riley Herbst Returns to Victory Lane as NASCAR Returns to Indianapolis Oval

With two laps remaining, Herbst made the move on his teammate Custer to take the lead; unfortunately for both Stewart-Haas drivers, it opened the door for Aric Almirola to drive through as well. A lap later, with the faster car, Herbst set himself up to retake the lead from Almirola to become the first Xfinity winner at Indianapolis since its return to the calendar.

“This is Indianapolis; this is the most famous race track in the world,” Herbst told NASCAR on NBC. “It’s an honor just to walk into this place, let alone win.”

“This is hallowed ground,” Herbst continued. “Every person in the world wants to race here, and I won here. I don’t care if it’s the Xfinity Series, if it’s the Cup Series, if it’s the go-kart track out back… This is the Brickyard.”

Since the news broke of Stewart-Haas shuttering two months ago, the team has been fighting through the negativity to put together good race results in their final season. The amount of work each team member does is not lost on the racers.

“This has been a pretty tough week for me, mentally,” Herbst said. “I’m proud of these guys, everyone at Stewart Haas Racing. Obviously, with the news of us shutting down, these guys could have given up on me and gone to other teams, but they stuck behind me and Cole.”

The race was one lap too long for Custer, who was looking to go back-to-back after his win last weekend at Pocono. The No. 00 driver thought that the leader was at a disadvantage all day as he blew through tires much faster than whatever driver was behind, lying in wait.

“It felt like a disadvantage to lead all day,” Custer said post-race. “If you were in second, you could get your car looser, and it would save your tires throughout the run; if you were leading, you would get so tight after 15 laps.

Not carry as much entry speed into three; he did the same thing to me earlier. When he was within a car length of me I was just so tight.

Almirola finished third after almost stealing the win from the SHR drivers.

“Those two cars were certainly better than us, but I knew if they got racing, there would be an opportunity to steal it,” Almirola said.

This is the part-time Joe Gibbs driver’s first race back after being benched for half a season following disciplinary action for a physical altercation with 23XI’s Bubba Wallace during an all-hands Toyota meeting.

Shane van Gisbergen had his second-best finish on an oval, narrowing, missing the podium, and finishing fourth. With three wins, all on road courses, NBC asked the New Zealand driver how prepared he is for the oval-dominated playoffs. van Gisbergen replied, letting the media know that with each race, he is getting more confident.

“I feel like I just keep getting better and better,” van Gisbergen said.

Victoria Beaver is a nomadic sports writer who spends her time hopping between race tracks and hippie farms. She’s covered every corner of motorsports that will let her in from 410 Sprints to NASCAR to Supercross. Her daily driver is a 2010 Subaru that she refused to do the smallest amount of preventative maintenance on. Instead, she spends her free time and money building a 42-foot Skoolie to one day travel the country full time.