FORT WORTH, Tex. – Before Martinsville Speedway last weekend, Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver Chris Buescher hasn’t had much to show performance-wise in his new JTG Daugherty Racing ride.
But, despite not being able to qualify for last Sunday’s STP 500 at Martinsville due to inclement weather, Buescher muscled his No. 37 JTG Daugherty Chevrolet through the field and contended for a top-10 finish before setting for 11th.
Teammate A.J. Allmendinger finished sixth last weekend putting forth the strongest performance for the newly-created two car organization since Allmendinger finished third in the season-opening Daytona 500.
“For me, that was definitely the best we’ve run at Martinsville,” Buescher said Friday at Texas Motor Speedway. “And I’m still pretty bummed that we didn’t get to qualify. I feel like we could have had a better day yet. But, for us to start where we did, and be able to work our way up through it; Trent (Owens, crew chief) made some really good calls.
“Our car was really good through the second half of the race; and really before that, our first run wasn’t quite where we needed it but we were able to work on it and get it rolling.”
Prior to Martinsville, Buescher the 2015 NASCAR XFINITY Series champion struggled to finish inside the top-25, noting his best outing came at Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway in March, where he finished 23rd.
While Buescher knows that his team has the capability to run strong on short tracks, the 24-year-old said it was essential for his team to take the data learned and apply it to some of the other larger tracks making up the meat of the Cup schedule.
“We proved that we have good mechanical grip in out race cars and we have speed in them,” he said. “We’ve just got to fine-tune as we go to some of these larger tracks.”
With Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 being a home-game for the Prosper, Texas native, Buescher hopes to be able to preserve through a completely repaved race track and earn their best finish of the year in front of family and friends.
“It’s always nice to come back home were it started,” he said. “Actually, as we were riding in here, the Legends cars were practicing on the fifth mile behind Big Hoss, which brings back memories really quickly there. I’ve probably run thousands and thousands of laps on that little track as well as the quarter-mile on the frontstretch here. It’s always been a place that I grew up around. And I grew up around a lot of people that are at the track.
“We’re just at a different stage now. For me, it’s always nice to come back home. I’ve got a lot of friends and family that will come out to this race and camp out and hang out. For us, it’s a way to get back and see them. For my family, they’re a lot farther away now than they used to be out in Prosper, but it’s still a good opportunity to go see Dad and some of his friends that are just a couple of miles up the road here last night, and then my mom is coming in this morning. It is nice because we don’t have very much time to go visit family during our year.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
