HAMPTON, Ga. – A week after being swept into a late-race accident in the Daytona 500, Chris Buescher bounced back for his JTG Daugherty Racing team with a ninth-place finish in Sunday’s Folds of Honors QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta (Ga.) Motor Speedway.
While it was a relatively quiet race for the Prosper, Texas native, his ninth career top-10 finish does give his No. 37 team some confidence heading into the West Coast swing.
Sunday’s finish for Buescher bettered his previous best at the 1.54-mile oval in 2017 when he finished 24th after starting 28th for JTG Daugherty Racing.
“I knew that 24th best finish stat and that was disappointing to me,” said Buescher after the race. “I knew we were going to better it today about after the first stage. Everybody on this Scott Comfort Plus Camaro ZL1 did a great job. This group worked hard. We made big swings to get up there and to start 30th and be able to get a top 10 out of this thing, I’m proud of them. That was fun.”
For a while during the race, it appeared that JTG Daugherty Racing would place two cars inside the top-10 as Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) rookie Ryan Preece hustled from his 25th place and soldiered into the top-10 but his day would end early after a pit road accident in the closing laps.
For Buescher, his effort was the first top-10 since finishing fifth at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway last July.
“That helped get us out of that hole or start to dig us out of that hole we got in with The Big One at Daytona,” added Buescher. “Just puts everyone in a good mood and Ryan (Preece) was running good too and I’m not exactly sure what happened, but I know something a little bit out of his control. I think this is a sign of good things to come. We’ve got some more work to do, but heck of a start.”
So far so good for JTG Daugherty who made aggressive changes to their organization during the offseason which included switching their engine program from Earnhardt Childress Racing engines to Hendrick Motorsports.
Buescher is hopeful that the team can inch their way to Victory Lane.
“Yeah I mean if we can go get some wins that is awesome. We’ve got a little ways to go to get there, but I sure don’t have any complaints about today,” Buescher added. “We worked hard. We made big swings, big adjustments to get into the top 10 and be able to put ourselves up there with our Scotts Comfort Plus Camaro ZL1. Just really proud of this group. It’s a lot of hard work that goes into the off-season. It’s cool to see if pay off and see all of our guys smiling afterwards.”
Sunday debuted a new aerodynamics package for the Cup Series and while the rules will differ some from track to track, Buescher said there was much to be learned this weekend and some of that intel could be applied to Las Vegas on March 3 and Auto Club (Calif.) Speedway on March 17.
“Yeah, a ton. Maybe not so much Vegas, that is a smoother, higher grip race track, but you look at Fontana surface, very similar to this, bigger track, but there is something to be said about the bumps what we did to combat that, what we were doing about clean air,” Buescher sounded. “It was definitely something we will apply towards Fontana, a little bit towards Vegas.”
After two races, Buescher climbed eight spots in the point standings from 31st to 23rd.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
