Aaron Kramer Added as 2025 Crew Chief for Cole Custer, Haas Factory Team
On Thursday afternoon, Haas Factory Team officially announced Aaron Kramer as the crew chief who will be paired with Cole Custer on the No. 41 Haas Factory Team during the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season.
Kramer is excited about the opportunity to work with Custer, a NASCAR Cup Series race-winning driver, who won the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship a season ago.
“This is a great opportunity and I’m very grateful for it,” Kramer said. “I’ve been working toward the crew chief position since I was racing go-karts in high school. It’s a proud moment to have it come with Haas Factory Team. Their alliance with RFK makes the learning curve a little less steep because I’m very familiar with the people and processes at RFK. “Having Cole as the driver is a huge asset. He’s highly motivated and dedicated to his craft. He puts in the time away from the track so that he’s ready every time he climbs into the racecar. That’s what you want as a crew chief. We’re going to push each other and support each other to get the best results possible.”
Kramer, 35, will move over from RFK Racing, where he has served as the lead race engineer for Chris Buescher's No. 17 team since the 2023 season. The Wellsville, New York native has been with RFK Racing since 2016 and has served in multiple engineering positions in that time.
With Kramer being a prodigy engineer, and being familiar with the RFK structure, made the decision to add him as Custer's crew chief in 2025 as Haas Factory Team will be aligned with RFK Racing.
"Aaron's engineerinhg pedigree and his history with RFK Racing are great assets for Haas Factory Team. We’re proud to have him join our team,” said Joe Custer, president, Haas Factory Team in a press release. “NASCAR, and the Cup Series in particular, has become very engineering-driven. Limited track time and the nuances of the NextGen car have put a premium on simulation and data, and to really maximize all that information, you need people who can apply that information to the car and work closely with the driver to fine-tune the car. Aaron is that person, and we’re confident he can build a team of like-minded people who will have our race team ready to go for 2025.”
Prior to joining RFK Racing, Kramer, who earned a mechanical engineering degree from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 2016, served as the car chief for the K-Automotive Motorsports team and Brian Keselowski in 2010. The following season, Kramer joined Max-Q Motorsports, where he served as a front-end mechanic for the No. 37 NASCAR Cup Series entry.
Kramer moved to Arrington Racing Engines in 2012, and would build engines for that organization until mid-2015. Kramer finished 2015 out with BorgWarner Turbo Systems, where he was a commercial vehicle application engineer, and then in 2016 he joined Penske Technology Group, where he provided wind tunnel support and operated the team's 7-post rig for Team Penske's NASCAR and IndyCar programs.
Custer, 26, feels Kramer brings a lot to the table for the No. 41 team as a crew chief.
“I’m very happy to have Aaron join Haas Factory Team,” Custer said. “Crew chief is a crucial piece in the makeup of a race team and Aaron brings a lot to our program. His background will really be a plus for me and our whole organization. Both of us still have jobs to do this year, but it’s reassuring to know that he’ll be my guy on top of the pit box next year.”
The Haas Factory Team is a brand-new team that was established by Gene Haas, a former co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing. After the decison to close up the Stewart-Haas Racing team at season's end, Haas opted to retain one of the SHR charters to open up his own single-car NASCAR Cup Series organization, which will also field two full-time NASCAR Xfinity Series entries.
TOBY CHRISTIE