Herbst optimistic ahead of Kansas Xfinity race

Riley Herbst, driver of the No. 98 Monster Energy Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing, is feeling good ahead of this weekend’s NASCAR Xfinity Series playoffs curtain-raiser at Kansas Speedway.

“We definitely have the speed to do it,” said Herbst, who is eighth in the standings, three points up on the Round of 8 cutline. “I’ve got the best team in the garage. We’re going to go do the best we can every week, and try to execute and go win this championship.

“We feel good. Kansas is a good track for us. We’ve really excelled in the mile and a half tracks this year, so we’re excited to go to a really fast mile and a half track. The Kansas track has similar characteristics to Las Vegas and Texas. Texas is another track that we have excelled at. It’s exciting for us to get going.”

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Following Kansas, the Xfinity Series playoffs will head to Talladega, followed by the recently reconfigured Charlotte Roval

“The Roval is going to be interesting because it is not the same track as we ran last year,” said Herbst. “It’s a new layout. It’s going to be interesting to see how we all adapt to that new track and what goes on.”

Now in his fifth full-time season in the Xfinity Series with a total of 168 races run, Herbst has transitioned into a mindset of being able to accept what a car provides him on any given race day.

“I think that we’ll have an opportunity to go win this race at Kansas, and if that presents itself, we’re going to go for it,” said Herbst. “However, if that opportunity doesn’t present itself, I feel like we’re just going to take what the car gives us and try to have three really solid races at Kansas, Talladega and Charlotte and try to move on to the next round.”

Throwing a wrench into Riley Herbst’s 2024 post-season is the reality of not knowing where he will race come next year. Speaking at the recent Xfinity Series playoff media day, Herbst, referring to the shuttering of Stewart-Haas Racing, admitted that he was “not confident” about what he would be doing come Daytona 2025.

“Yeah, it’s been tough, because obviously Stewart-Haas Racing is closing down and going out of business,” he said. “But it’s also been good, because we’ve all bonded together really closely and it’s kind of like the last dance for everybody. It’s been a good silver lining a little bit, but it has definitely been tough to overcome. It bothered me a lot earlier, but I feel like now we all know what is going on now, so the distraction is not near as bad as it used to be. 2025 for me is still TBD. Hopefully, we can announce something here soon.”

Herbst has improved tremendously throughout the last five Xfinity Series seasons, and is now a multi-time race winner who can contend in any race he lines up. Improved consistency has played a major part in getting him to that level.

“Yeah, we were really, really good with consistency,” he said. “However, during the last few weeks of the late summer, we kind of fell off our mark a little bit. We were fourth in points going into the summer break, and now we are eighth. That’s kind of frustrating for us, but we’ll get back on track here and we’ll go win this championship. We’re not satisfied. Hopefully, we can go out here and do it. We’re still hungry. We still want to win this championship. We also want to win more races this year.

“We’ll see where everything settles at the end of the year. We’re eager to get to the track this weekend and go dominate. If we do our job and execute, I think everything will work out well. We’re confident and we’ve got the speed.”