RICHMOND, Va.—After enjoying a breakout season in 2023, Chris Buescher is struggling to maintain a spot on the NASCAR Cup Playoff grid.
With four races remaining in the regular season, the 31-year-old racer is hanging on to the 15th position by a mere 17 points.
But Buescher believes in the No. 17 Roush Fenway Keselowski team and their ability to return to the postseason.
“I’m not nervous about it,” Buescher said. “It’s something that we’re going to pay a little bit more attention to as we run down into these final four here. But I’m pretty adamant about it. I don’t want to change the way we approach our races. I’ve just seen it too many times in our sport where you try and get put back on your heels and change up what you’re doing and it can end up costing you.
“We’ve got to race our races, put our best foot forward and that should be enough to get us where we need to go.”
Following a two-week Olympic break, Buescher is ready for a reset. The affable driver endured his share of heartbreak during the first 22 races of the season. The team dug a hole in the standings after his crash at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March.
In May, he was denied back-to-back opportunities to win, first losing to Kyle Larson at Kansas Speedway by .001-seconds—the closest finish in Cup history. The following week, Buescher was knocked out of the lead at Darlington Raceway by Tyler Reddick with nine laps remaining in the race.
Buescher was looking at a solid finish at Indianapolis Motor Speedway—the final race before the break—before he was “dinged again” on the final lap.
“We definitely showed a lot of potential for speed on the weekend,” Buescher said. “Just didn’t get a chance to pull it all out and put much points on the table.”
No doubt, Buescher has been tested. The good news? Buescher is the defending winner of the next three races, starting with this weekend’s Cookout 400 at Richmond Raceway.
“Three of the next four races we’re heading into we were able to win last year, so that’s a pretty awesome statistic as we look at it,” Buescher said. “But last year’s results don’t equal this year’s. We’ve been very good at a lot of different styles of racetracks. We’ve been very close to locking ourselves in, but we’ve been very good.
“We’re plenty capable of progressing and winning a race here in the next four like we have been. We’ve just got to clean up and have a couple of things go our way and just do a good job and control what we can from our side.”
No, Buescher doesn’t seem concerned. After a decade of competing at the Cup level, the Prosper, Texas, native has never been with an operation as stable as RFK or a team that has displayed such promise.
During the 2023 season, not only were Buescher’s three wins a career best, but so were his nine top fives, 17 top 10s and 255 laps led. Each year the No. 17 Ford has improved since Brad Keselowski joined the organization as an owner/driver.
Buescher acknowledges Keselowski’s contribution. The former champion was instrumental in helping Buescher get over the hump at Richmond.
“Brad runs very well there and has been able to give me a handful of pointers that have led me down a better path, and our team has stepped up in a massive way and brought some very fast race cars that ultimately just make me look better,” Buescher said. “When we bring those race cars to the track and we’re that competitive off the truck, it makes my job a lot easier when I know that we’re in the ballpark.
“When you’re fine-tuning on a weekend versus really swinging, trying to just get close, it really makes a difference on how your entire weekend plays out, and that’s where we’ve been. We’ve been unloading so much closer to where we’ve been able to fine-tune speed into it versus being more in a guessing game.”
Buescher has improved on a variety of venues from short tracks to intermediates and road courses, where he has scored top fives throughout the season. Still, he knows the only guarantee for a playoff spot will come from a win over the next four races.
“We’ve been very good at a lot of these places,” Buescher said. “We just haven’t been able to seal the deal, and it has gotten frustrating.
“The hard part is keeping everybody’s head up because it’s a hard sport and we know that, but I guess we’re just going to have to do the same thing we did last year and come to life now and make it a show.”
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer or email her at: [email protected].
