SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Prior to Riley Herbst winning Saturday’s Pennzoil 250 Xfinity Series Xfinity Series races at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Joe Custer, team president of Haas Factory Team, stated the team has offered Herbst a ride for the 2025 Xfinity season.
“Riley, we would love for him to come back and we’ve made him an offer to do so, but they’re looking at the whole sport,” Custer said. “I’m pretty excited about our Xfinity program.”
When Gene Haas announced last month that he would retain one of his four charters from Stewart-Haas Racing while transitioning to Haas Factory Team in 2025, he also announced the team would continue running two Xfinity Series teams. Herbst has been with the team since 2021, scoring two victories over the last calendar year.
Herbst is weighing all of his options. Sources have confirmed that he is a frontrunner for a third entry at 23XI Racing in 2025, should the team decide to expand to a third car. He has longtime sponsor Monster Energy in his corner.
Denny Hamlin, co-owner of 23XI, had a one-word statement on X, formerly known as Twitter after Herbst passed Aric Almirola on the final lap at Indianapolis to score the victory: “Impressive.”
Herbst said he will rely on Kevin Harvick and Kevin Harvick Inc., who he is a client of.
“I’m looking at opportunities at all three levels,” Herbst said in his post-race press conference. I’ve had a lot of talks with Haas Factory and they are going really well. Obviously, they have really fast racecars, as you saw today. I think I’m going to put my chips on the table with Kevin Harvick and everyone at Kevin Harvick Inc. and rely on what they think my next step should be and where I should position myself best for the future.
“I think the biggest thing that gets overlooked is it’s not just my decision. I have a say in it and I get to point the ship and get information from strong people that I have a lot of respect for, like Kevin and I can kind of point the ship in the direction I want. But there’s a really big company out in Corona that has a really big say in Monster Energy. That’s probably going to be more of a weight than my say in the offseason and we will see what they want to do.”
Herbst jumped two spots in the regular season standings to fifth via his win at Indianapolis.