South Texan Kempf fueled Cole Custer’s 2023 Xfinity Championship win
Wow! The NASCAR Xfinity series final race of 2023 was a down-to-thewire, fender-rubbing, two-lap overtime shootout finish, and the Cole Custer-driven stock car narrowly beat his two closest competitors and the entire field to win the series Championship. Custer did all the driving, but the liquid energy poured into that No. 00 Stewart Haas Racing Ford was handled by Natalianative, Matthew Kempf. As “fueler” he always topped off the fuel cell faster than the rest of the crew finished their tire changing and suspension adjusting duties all season long.
Some people work their whole career, climbing the ladder, reaching for that difficult-to- achieve highest goal! But 2023 was Kempf’s first season with the SHR team, and bingo, all the teamwork paid off over the 33-different and difficult race events. Kempf was very much a part of that Championship winning team, and teamwork always wins in motorsports. Kempf was the man who handled all those heavy, 95-plus pound, 11-gallon, red dump cans full of racing fuel at every pit stop throughout the season. “This is an incredible accomplishment by everyone on our team!”, Kempf said from his SHR headquarters in the Charlotte, NC area. “I really like this Xfinity series, and it’s quite a bit different than the Cup series these days. I have just been given more responsibility during the 2024 season and will also be a tire specialist/machine shop technician, and will again be the fuel guy when we are at the track racing.” “Oh, yes, we will be on the road all season and we leave here for our first event at Daytona February 16th. I’m 31-years old now, and will be 32 in June, and I do appreciate this team! By the way, the new Xfinity series rules on fuel dump cans in 2024 mandate a smaller nine-gallon dump can to fill the 18-gallon reduced size fuel cell in each vehicle. My back will definitely feel the difference, because those filled cans will only weigh 70 to 75-pounds each!”, Kempf revealed.
When asked about where most of the NASCAR crew members are from, Kempf surprised us with his answer, “The vast majority of the NASCAR Technicians are from the Northeastern U.S., and that’s because they have so much racing with both
Modifieds and Stock Cars up there, and they get a lot of experience in those series.” Being on the road so much every race season, you get to know everyone pretty well, and the talk among the crews before the Chicago NASCAR Xfinity race was that it might be a tough crowd there, but that was not the case. “The Chicago fans were very nice to us, and we really appreciated that, especially since the weather
and the rain storms up there were difficult for all the race teams on that Chicago street circuit”, Kempf stated. Race fans watch NASCAR pit stops carefully, as they are practiced and emphasized, and teams try to reduce the total time in the pit stall to an absolute minimum, obviously. “Our fastest pit stop in the 2023 season was in Texas at Circuit of the Americas, and we did one of those stops in
12.9-seconds”, Kempf said. “But our overall best pit stop was that last one we did in the season ending race at Phoenix where everything was on the line. Our Crew Chief (Jon Toney) came over the team radio as he pulled away from the pits, he told Cole, ‘Your championship pit crew just did their job, now it’s in your hands!’, and Cole really fought for the win and the Xfinity championship.”