BROOKLYN, Mich. – With a resilient attitude and luck on their side, Chris Buescher recovered from an early-race issue to finish sixth in Sunday’s Pure Michigan 400 at Michigan International Speedway to earn his season-best finish for JTG-Daugherty Racing.
After qualifying 20th Friday afternoon, Buescher hovered inside the top-20 during the early laps, but the Prosper, Tex. native had to bail out from the pack on Lap 25 for a flat tire.
Luckily for the former XFINITY Series champion, the race stayed green through Stage 1 allowing Buescher to maintain his presence on the lead lap finishing 20th at the end of the stage.
Battling a loose Bush’s Baked Beans Chevrolet, Buescher finished Stage 2 in 22nd, but with changes made for the start of Stage 3, Buescher’s car came to life.
His progress through the field, however, was nearly stalled when he ran over a piece of debris and had to pit under caution. With damage to the front-end of his No. 37 Chevrolet, Buescher made a couple trips to pit road for repairs.
Restarting 21st on the Lap 147 restart, Buescher patiently and methodically began passing cars and moved inside the top-15 by Lap 162.
When debris brought out the fourth caution of the afternoon on Lap 186, Buescher, who hadn’t made his final trip to pit road was able to make his final stop under caution, while many others found themselves a lap down after green flag stops.
Restarting 13th, Buescher had moved inside the top-10 with five laps remaining and with the final caution waved for a two-car accident in Turn 2, the team elected to keep their driver out on older tires.
A good restart by Busch allowed him to take the white flag in seventh and was able to claim one more spot when the checkered flag waved earning his third top-10 finish of the year.
After climbing from his car, the 24-year-old summed up his day with just one word.
“Wild,” he said.
“We had a tire go down early and put us off sequence early on and this team did a good job today. They played the strategy right and worked hard. We had to fix the car. We had a hole in the nose at one point from debris through one of the crashes.
“Fought hard all day long, to be able to get to here right now, that is a really cool finish. Really proud of this team.”
At one point in the afternoon, both JTG-Daugherty Chevrolets found themselves comfortably inside the top-15, but teammate A.J. Allmendinger pitted before Buescher costing the No. 47 team a lap on pit road and ultimately had to utilize a wave-around to get back on the lead lap.
Allmendinger finished 20th.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
