FORT WORTH – Front Row Motorsports added two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) races for Roush Fenway Racing’s Chris Buescher Friday morning at Texas Motor Speedway.
With sponsorship from CSX, next Sunday’s rumble in Thunder Valley at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway and the always unpredictable Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway two weeks later have been added to the Prosper, Texas native’s week-by-week schedule.
But what about Richmond?
Sandwiched in the middle between the two races, the full-time XFINITY Series driver had a quick retort as to why he wouldn’t be competing in the Toyota Owners 400 on April 25.
“Nothing going on for Richmond, just trying to keep our focus on the XFINITY side,” said Buescher. “The schedule at Richmond would be extremely hectic and it’s not fair to my guys on the
XFINITY side and the 60 guys to be trying to run back and forth all day like that.
Indeed, entering Friday night’s XFINITY race at Texas Motor Speedway, Buescher sits second in the championship standings with an eye towards his second championship in his sophomore season.
This time last year, Buescher left the 1.5-mile speedway 11th in points, which was impressive after missing the season opener.
“We’re sitting in a really good spot in points right now over there and we need to make sure that we put in all of our efforts to be able to go win that championship. If that means sitting out a weekend in the Cup car, that’s absolutely OK. It’s always been from the beginning this was just gonna be a little extra something to help out a Ford Performance team and Roush was generous enough to let me go do it, so we’re excited to be able to run Bristol and Talladega.”
Rightfully, the 2012 ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards champion has impressed in his substitute role for David Ragan who continues a similar role for injured Kyle Busch at Joe Gibbs Racing.
In his Sprint Cup Series debut at Auto Club (Calif.) Speedway last month, Buescher finished a competitive 20th followed by 24th a week later in his Martinsville (Va.) Speedway debut.
All things considered, Buescher’s results in his fill-in role for the Statesville, North Carolina-based team have raised eyebrows, but for FRM, the feedback and craft from Buescher has opened the door for the team to improve as a whole.
And even vice-versa.
“The handling characteristics are pretty close now,” Buescher said. “The power is a lot closer. As we go into the races we’re able to learn a lot through the extended length of the Cup races, we’re able to think about how the car changes throughout a run, that adjustable track bar on the Cup side is interesting because it makes you realize real time how much it affected the race car through a run.
“You know that we’re sitting there on the XFINITY side and we do a round and we go back out and you’re on a different set of tires, the track conditions are a little different, everybody is coming back up to pace and you’re in a different place in traffic on the race track. There’s no good judge, whereas real time you can get a pretty good feel for it. Guys that go into that Cup Series and run there and get a couple seasons and then decide to come back to the XFINITY side always run extremely well, so, like I said, extra seat time is never a bad thing.”
Front Row Motorsports has not named a driver for the team’s No. 34 Ford Fusion for Richmond, the eighth race of the season.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
