DOVER, Del. – Inside the final 10 laps of Saturday’s Buckle Up 200 presented by Click It or Ticket at Dover (Del.) International Speedway, Roush Fenway Racing teammates Darrell Wallace Jr. and Chris Buescher collided and both drivers ended up on different ends of the spectrum when the checkered flag flew.
Buescher scored his third career NASCAR XFINITY Series victory, his second in three races, while Darrell Wallace Jr. suffered a flat tire that sent him to pit road destroying a chance at $100,000 XFINITY Dash 4 Cash bonus, as well as his third consecutive top-10 finish.
“We just got run over,” said Wallace. “It sucks that it was my teammate. I thought he got help from the 7 but I just saw the replay there. I was saving fuel. I didn’t think I was holding him tight and the next thing you know we are almost in the fence. The crappy part about it is we had a really strong Ford EcoBoost Mustang and we couldn’t get off pit road to save us and we got caught in dirty air and then we were in fuel saving mode.
“I thought we were doing okay until that little incident. I would say I am happy Roush won but I am not.”
With a long green flag run set the scenario for a fuel-mileage finish, Buescher and Wallace found themselves as the only two drivers stretching their tanks to the end.
Unfortunately on Lap 191 battling for the lead, but more importantly the trophy, Buescher’s car climbed the racetrack in Turn 3 into Wallace’s No. 6 Ford Mustang and subsequently cut the left front tire of Wallace’s car.
Two laps later, the tire gave way forcing the former NASCAR Next alum making an unwanted trip to pit road. Trying to steer his battered car there, he missed the entrance which forced him to limp around for another lap.
Wallace eventually made it to his pit stall where service was performed. However, instead of contending for his first career XFINITY Series win, Wallace had to settle for a 17th, his worst finish since 20th at Talladega Superspeedway earlier this month.
Buescher methodically reiterated that he didn’t mean to get into his teammate and ruin his day.
“That was tough because we are sitting there and he was saving a lot more fuel than I was because they were shorter and I was able to run into the corner harder but I couldn’t do anything with the track being pretty narrow and two guys racing for the win,” said Buescher. “It was tough. We got side by side and it got pretty free but this Roush Mustang was good all weekend.
“The race wasn’t exactly where we needed to be but then Scott (Graves, crew chief) pulled great strategy and the team did a nice job and we got to victory lane with this Ford.”
Team owner Jack Roush said he would review and discuss the incident, but the main priority moving forward was mending the fences and both drivers working together as good teammates.
“We will have to sort that out,” offered Roush post-race. “I know that nobody meant to have contact. Bubba didn’t and certainly Chris didn’t. We will have to work on the feelings and get everybody feeling good about being teammates going forward.”
Roush who celebrated the team’s third XFINITY Series win of the season added, “I will have to have an interview with everyone involved and try to reach a determination of things that we might do in the future that could possibly preclude that from happening again. A team owner has no worse horror than to have two competitive programs in position to win a race and have them have contact with one another and one of them not be able to finish in the position he was otherwise entitled.”
Wallace slipped to fifth in the championship standings, now 49 points behind Buescher. After 12 races, Buescher padded his lead over Ty Dillon heading into the next race at Michigan International Speedway on June 13.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
