KANSAS CITY, Kan – Chris Buescher hasn’t had much to celebrate this season, but in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400, the JTG-Daugherty Racing driver earned his fourth top-10 finish of the season at Kansas Speedway.
Qualifying 20th on Friday afternoon, Buescher faded early in the race and despite finishing outside the top-25 under caution at the end of Stage 1 and 25th in Stage 2, adjustments from his No. 37 team allowed the Prosper, Texas native to propel forward at the beginning of Stage 3.
After quickly climbing inside the top-20 following the Lap 167 restart, Buescher managed to escape a 14-car melee on Lap 198 and maneuvered inside the top-10 with a fuel-only pit stop prior to the Lap 205 restart.
Despite sliding back after the restart, the final caution on Lap 236 brought out by his teammate AJ Allmendinger worked out to his advantage allowing Buescher to make his final pit stop under caution.
“Yeah absolutely that was an awesome day for our Scott brands Chevrolet,” said Buescher.
“Looking at the whole weekend, we unloaded with pretty good speed. I didn’t do as good of a job qualifying as I needed to and lost a little track position because of it. But, still ended up with a pretty decent pit stall. We were clean there all day. Made it through the big accident on the backstretch by a very small margin. I am going to say it was within inches, but you go back and look it was probably within several feet, but it felt close, it felt wild.”
Restarting sixth for a 25-lap shootout, Buescher was able to maintain his spot and claim the team’s ninth top-10 finish of the year overall.
For the 24-year-old Buescher, it was his best finish since a sixth at Michigan International Speedway in August.
All four of Buescher’s top-10 finishes this season have come in the second-half of the year at Daytona (10th), Indianapolis (ninth) and the two season-best sixth-place finishes within the last nine races.
The 2015 NASCAR XFINITY Series champion reiterated that the organization has been focused on turning around their lackluster season.
“Just proud of everybody back at JTG Daugherty Racing,” he added. “We have been working really hard the last several months to try and get it turned around. We have hit the summer months and we haven’t had the speed we wanted. So, this weekend was a big step in the right direction for us.
“It’s exciting. It’s fun to come back and run well.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
