Tag: Chris Buescher

RFK Racing reveals new NASCAR paint scheme for Chris Buescher in 2024

RFK Racing reveals a new NASCAR Cup Series paint scheme for Chris Buescher in 2024. Take a look at Buescher’s new scheme!

[autotag]Chris Buescher[/autotag] had a breakout NASCAR Cup Series season in 2023, with several victories at the end of the summer. Buescher won back-to-back races at Bristol and Michigan while following them up with a victory at Daytona with help from teammate Brad Keselowski. Now, the driver of the No. 17 car has a new look as Ford brings a new car to the Cup Series.

On Tuesday morning, RFK Racing released Buescher’s new paint scheme for the 2024 NASCAR season. It features a blue base with more black on the front and back compared to last year. Buescher’s paint scheme is the second announced by the organization, as David Ragan’s livery was already revealed for the 2024 Daytona 500. Brad Keselowski is the last driver remaining.

Overall, it is a very sharp paint scheme and an improvement from the 2023 NASCAR season. As stated above, Buescher has a new look for a new car and hopes it brings even more success than his breakout year. If so, Buescher could be fighting for his first career Cup Series championship after being eliminated in the Round of 8.

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Chris Buescher’s 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season in review

Chris Buescher had a breakout year with RFK Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series. Here, you can check out Buescher’s 2023 season in review!

[autotag]Chris Buescher[/autotag] will look back at the 2023 NASCAR season and label this as the year he finally broke through. Buescher closed the campaign with three wins, nine top-5 finishes, and 17 top-10 finishes, which are all career highs for him. Unfortunately for the driver of the No. 17 car, he didn’t show enough pace to advance out of the Round of 8.

Buescher won at Richmond Raceway, Michigan International Speedway, and Daytona International Speedway. The first two wins were back-to-back as he firmly established himself as a championship threat. Buescher finished his consistent year with 255 laps led (12th best) and a 12.1 average finishing position (second best); however, a poor Round of 8 was his demise.

The RFK Racing driver was unable to earn enough points with an 11th-place finish at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, a 21st-place finish at Homestead-Miami Speedway, and an eighth-place finish at Martinsville Speedway. In fact, Buescher only had five top-10 finishes in the 2023 playoffs. The speed that he found at Richmond and Michigan was truly never found again.

Still, Buescher has firmly established himself as a potential annual winner moving forward. RFK Racing has taken a step in the right direction and the No. 17 team benefited from their improvements. Buescher may not have closed out the season with the speed he was expecting but it will forever be labeled as the year he finally broke through as a multi-time winner.

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Buescher and team ‘want to go out fighting’ in NASCAR playoffs

Sunday’s race at Martinsville Speedway is a must-win for Chris Buescher’s No. 17 RFK Racing team if they want to extend their time in the NASCAR Cup Series postseason, and crew chief Scott Graves has embraced the scenario. “For us, it’s really easy: …

Sunday’s race at Martinsville Speedway is a must-win for Chris Buescher’s No. 17 RFK Racing team if they want to extend their time in the NASCAR Cup Series postseason, and crew chief Scott Graves has embraced the scenario.

“For us, it’s really easy: just go and win,” Graves said. “That’s our only mission on this one. This is a lot easier than worrying about one or two points here or there and everything that comes with that.

“Yeah, it’s pretty straightforward, and I think it’ll make calling the race a lot easier. We need to have (track) position at the end of the race, so anything we need to do to set up for that leading into it, we’re going to be doing.”

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Buescher is last on the Cup Series playoff grid and 43 points out of a transfer spot. A victory is the most realistic chance for him to advance into the championship race, and Buescher does have a short-track win under his belt from Richmond Raceway in late July.

It is the second postseason appearance for Buescher and the furthest he has advanced. It’s the furthest a Roush car has been in the postseason since 2017, when Ricky Stenhouse Jr. made it into the second round. And Buescher outlasted teammate Brad Keselowski, who was eliminated in the last round.

Although it’s been a season of exceeding expectations, Graves said no one on the No. 17 team is happy with having come this far to only come this far. But having their backs against the wall was the result of being the worst finishing playoff driver in Las Vegas (11th) and a 21st-place finish at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“There’s definitely some disappointment after the last few weeks; probably our worst two races we’ve had in quite a while and a bad time for that,” Graves said. “That’s a little frustrating, but on the other side, we want to go out fighting. If we’re going out, we want to go out fighting. So, there’s a lot of confidence going into this weekend.

“He’s run well at Martinsville; we had a good car there last spring, just had issues with some pit road things that set us back. But it feels like we can run pretty well, so we’re looking forward to it. 
 We haven’t let it get to us too much in terms of what we’ve done.”

Buescher has 16 starts at Martinsville with one top-10 finish. His average finish is 19.4 without a lap led. In the spring race, Buescher finished 14th.

Slick Vegas pits cost Buescher valuable points as finale nears

Chris Buescher could have had a worse day at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but in the midst of fighting to advance in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, it needed to be better than an 11th-place finish. “We had good speed there at the beginning and [were] …

Chris Buescher could have had a worse day at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but in the midst of fighting to advance in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, it needed to be better than an 11th-place finish.

“We had good speed there at the beginning and [were] able to hang right around the top five, I guess. I don’t know exactly where,” Buescher said. “It really just fell apart on pit road for the most part and that’s my fault. It’s not our crew’s fault; they were good. I just couldn’t get in and out of our box and just continuously bled spots. I’ve got to figure out what I could do different, what we can do to try and get some of the rubber out of it, I guess.

“I just really struggled there and didn’t ever find a solution. Outside of that, we had good long-run speed and fire-off speed was decent. We kind of bounced back and forth on balance, but I felt like we had a really strong car. I’m proud of everybody.

“It’s not a bad day at all. I know we’re upset, but it’s not a bad day. It’s just that everybody we need to outrun, we didn’t.”

Las Vegas pit road can be a variable. Christopher Bell, for instance, struggled to launch out of his pit stall, which was the first one at pit exit after winning the pole. The grip in the pit stall is also what hindered Buescher, who felt he could not get stopped well, or launch out of it well.

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“I feel like it was stall and grip,” he said. “You definitely see certain boxes are way more rubbered up after the Xfinity (Series) race. I don’t have the answer, but it sure felt like the box. I think this place always has a little bit of slick pit stalls, but nothing like that in the past.”

Buescher was the lowest-finishing playoff driver — behind Ryan Blaney, William Byron, Tyler Reddick, Martin Truex Jr., and Denny Hamlin who all finished sixth through 10th.

The No. 17 RFK Racing team didn’t lead a lap Sunday and failed to score any stage points, finishing where their average running position was through the 400-mile event. Buescher is last on the playoff grid by 23 points after the opening race in the round.

“I thought we had a chance to win a race today and just lost some track position,” Buescher said. “As I said, I just struggled in the box and bled a handful of spots here and there, and by the time I looked up, we were deep in the teens and struggling in dirty air.

“It was really, really hard to pass, especially when everybody is on newer tires, and it was a little more equal. Once it got strung out, we were pretty decent, but just a bummer it didn’t play out the way we needed it to today.”

Buescher and RFK have ‘made it hard’ for rivals to ignore them

Chris Buescher doesn’t concern himself too much with what his NASCAR Cup Series playoff rivals are thinking, but if anything, he believes they should, by now, be taking his RFK Racing team seriously as a championship player. “Where I’m at, yeah, we …

Chris Buescher doesn’t concern himself too much with what his NASCAR Cup Series playoff rivals are thinking, but if anything, he believes they should, by now, be taking his RFK Racing team seriously as a championship player.

“Where I’m at, yeah, we probably made it hard for them not to and I’m proud of that,” Buescher said. “I’m proud of this organization for that and what we’ve been able to accomplish has been huge. I think we’re realistically contenders to make it to the next round. Are we a favorite to win it? That’s probably a little bit hard to say, and I feel like we’ve got some more work to do for us to feel that way, but I certainly feel like we’re capable of making this thing.

“Given the right circumstances and just a few little tweaks along the way, very capable of making a run in Phoenix. To me, I think we’re not at a point where we can be ignored anymore.”

Buescher expressed as much when the postseason started, not shying away from the high expectations his No. 17 RFK Racing team was placing on themselves given how well the regular season went earning three victories. Buescher confidently stated how they are “very competitive” and not underdogs like they were in his first postseason appearance a few years ago.

After advancing out of the first round of the postseason for the first time, Buescher quietly made it through the second round without issue. Sunday afternoon (2:30 p.m. ET, NBC), Buescher will begin the Round of 8 from fifth on the playoff grid. He is three points below a transfer spot.

“We’ve made it a long way this season,” Buescher continued. “We’ve outrun a lot of [people who] were considered favorites from the get-go on the year, and we’ve done that and outrun them very consistently through the second half of the season and even a little more so. I don’t know what everyone else is feeling, but I would say you’re going to have a hard time finding somebody that’s not aware that we’re in this round and that we have an opportunity to make it to the next one.”

Buescher is the last man standing from the RKF Racing camp after teammate Brad Keselowski was eliminated in the last round, and one of only two Ford drivers left in contention.

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Of the final eight drivers, there are two former champions left (Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Larson) in addition to the the No. 1 seed (William Byron). Toyota has half of the contenders and one of them, Christopher Bell, is the only driver who has a shot at making a return trip to the Championship 4 from last season.

All of that information would be news to Buescher. Although he’s made it into another round, he hasn’t exactly sized up the competition.

“It’s still more focused on what we can do and what we can control,” he said. “It’s more of our own game. This is our decisions to be made. This is our speed to find. Most of the situations that are ahead of us really just need to be what we can control and what we can do as a group to be fast, to be able to make that next round, win races, whatever that may be, and I haven’t really taken that time to step back and look at strong or weak spots for the other teams that are in this final round.

“Honestly, if you asked me right now, I don’t think I could honestly give you the other seven that are in it accurately. I could get most of them, but it’s not to that point where we’re sitting here thinking about the others. At least, I’m not at this point.”

That could change as soon as this weekend.

“Maybe,” Buescher said. “We’ll probably get out of Vegas and get a little bit more of a read on how that weekend went. We’ll look at the two tracks we have ahead of us, figure out where we feel we stand on those, and then maybe put it in perspective where the cars that we’re racing, see which ones of those had a good weekend, a bad weekend and what tracks will suit them well going forward.

“Again, it’s really up to us. It’s up to us to have good days, strong points days for stages, for setting up the win. It’s our battle to win, and it’s our battle to lose, and worrying about others really isn’t going to change that. You just need to be aware of it.”

Chris Buescher’s outlook for the Round of 12 during 2023 NASCAR season

Evaluating Chris Buescher’s chances of advancing out of the Round of 12 in his first NASCAR playoffs with RFK Racing.

[autotag]Chris Buescher[/autotag] was in an uncomfortable position heading into the Round of 16 finale due to a problem in the previous race; however, Buescher escaped and now finds himself in the Round of 12 for the first time. The RFK Racing driver advanced with finishes of third place at Darlington Raceway, 27th place at Kansas Speedway, and fourth place at Bristol Motor Speedway.

If not for Buescher’s issue at Kansas, it would have been smooth sailing for the No. 17 team due to its speed. So, how does the Round of 12 stack up for Buescher as he tries to claim his first NASCAR Cup Series title? Let’s take a look at what tracks are coming up over the next three races.

The driver of the No. 17 car will take a 10-point advantage to the playoff cut-line and head to Texas Motor Speedway, which hasn’t been a great track for him historically. Buescher has a best finish of 15th place in 2018 and zero top-20 finishes with RFK Racing. However, the equipment that Buescher is driving has drastically improved and he should improve those statistics.

Moving on to Talladega, there are no reasons to look at the statistics, just like his teammate and owner Brad Keselowski. Buescher is one of NASCAR’s best superspeedway drivers and won at Daytona International Speedway in the regular season finale. Talladega should be the RFK Racing driver’s best opportunity to earn a victory in the Round of 12.

Finally, the Charlotte ROVAL should be a strong race for Buescher as he possesses two straight top-6 finishes at the venue. Also, he has four top-10 finishes in the five road course events in 2023 so it should be similar in a few weeks. Buescher could have a strong end to the Round of 12 and it might be needed due to the unpredictability.

Buescher’s biggest challenge will be Texas as he hasn’t seen much success in the past. It makes Talladega even more important because it is hard to bank on a great run in Fort Worth, despite Keselowski’s pole last season. The driver of the No. 17 car definitely has a shot at making the Round of 8 but Texas will be a massive indicator of his chances.

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Buescher eager to get started in round 2 of NASCAR’s playoffs

The first round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs was not as comfortable for Chris Buescher as he would have wanted, but now comes a stretch of tracks he can’t wait to get to. “I am excited for this round because I know we will be fast at all these …

The first round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs was not as comfortable for Chris Buescher as he would have wanted, but now comes a stretch of tracks he can’t wait to get to.

“I am excited for this round because I know we will be fast at all these racetracks,” Buescher said. “If we can control that part of it and take care of ourselves, then it shouldn’t be that stressful on us.”

Buescher had an average finish of 11.3 in the first round. The one blemish was a 27th-place finish at Kansas Speedway after blowing a tire with seven laps to go. It made the elimination race at Bristol Motor Speedway much tighter than Buescher was expecting, with only a 13-point advantage.

A fourth-place finish Saturday night got the job done. It is the first time Buescher has advanced into the Round of 12 in two postseason appearances.

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There are three different types of racetracks in the second round: Texas Motor Speedway (intermediate), Talladega Superspeedway (superspeedway) and the Charlotte Roval (road course). All three tracks leave little room for error and can be unpredictable. There were 16 cautions in Texas last season, including for multiple playoff drivers encountering trouble, while Talladega isn’t always in a driver’s control, and by Buescher’s own admission, the Roval is tricky for a number of reasons.

“The way I see it, the superspeedway races always have a certain amount of unpredictability, but where I’m at is I know RFK (Racing) will be bringing fast Fords to that race,” Buescher said. “I know we will be in contention to win it, assuming we can survive the chaos. But I think we have seen that same chaos at a lot of different tracks throughout the year. Bristol last year was a train wreck when you talk about cars falling out and having issues. I promise you, after losing out on a bunch of points at Kansas, it was on my mind going into Bristol, knowing we would be fast but that there was an array of issues that popped up last year and took really good cars and ruined their days and their playoffs.

“I don’t know that any of these races coming up have me any more stressed out than the Bristol race had me going into it. If we can go to Texas and have a good day and have a rough Talladega, then yeah, the Roval will be more stressful. I don’t get too caught up in worrying about it. Martinsville can be very rough. Even Texas last year had a lot of issues, too. I don’t know that there is any one round that looks worse over another.”

RFK’s drivers like what they’ve been seeing at the superspeedway races lately. Nigel Kinrade/Motorsport Images

Buescher and teammate Brad Keselowski have been two of the fastest on the superspeedways. The duo swept the qualifying races in Daytona last season and Buescher won the regular-season finale in Daytona last month. His average finish at Talladega is 19.9.

Going by the numbers, these three races don’t look good for Buescher. In Texas, Buescher has an average finish of 23.3 and 12.8 at the Charlotte Roval. Buescher has finished in the top six in the last two Roval races.

But history doesn’t mean much with the progression Buescher and RFK Racing have made. This is why he’s not stressed about the second round but views it as an opportunity.

“I think that’s just it,” he said. “I think that’s what is going to make it maybe a little less stressful for us than some others. That can change in a heartbeat with one bad day before we get to the Roval, but as of right now, I am very excited for this round. I feel like all of the racetracks we are going to, out of all the racetracks in the playoffs, Darlington was the one that I felt like we needed the most improvement at, that was going to be tough, and we would have to work really hard to just survive. We went there and ran third on the day.

“I’m proud of what everyone has done to get us to this point and proud to say we will look at the racetracks coming up as opportunities at each and every one of them. I don’t have one coming up that has me stressed out or down about it or thinking we just have to get through it and get to the next one.”

‘We aren’t an underdog’ this playoff season – Buescher

Chris Buescher might be in the NASCAR Cup Series postseason for the second time in his career, but in a way, it feels like the first time. Buescher was a Cup Series rookie in 2016 when he made the playoffs through a weather-shortened race at Pocono …

Chris Buescher might be in the NASCAR Cup Series postseason for the second time in his career, but in a way, it feels like the first time.

Buescher was a Cup Series rookie in 2016 when he made the playoffs through a weather-shortened race at Pocono Raceway. Furthermore, he was driving for a team that was underfunded and just happy to be included in the postseason. No one, including Front Row Motorsports, expected them to go far.

That’s not the case beginning Sunday night at Darlington Raceway (6 p.m. ET, USA). Buescher and the. No. 17 RKF Racing group have won three of the last five races and begin the postseason as the fourth seed.

“In a lot of ways that was an amazing accomplishment to make our rookie season with Front Row, but also, we understood we were a massive underdog in that playoff season and were just hopeful to make it into the next round,” Buescher said. “We aren’t an underdog in this one. We are very competitive.

“We expect a lot more out of ourselves and so in that way, yes, it’s a completely different situation than we were in that year. We are going to be learning a lot for the first time or approaching things for the first time.”

Buescher even joked earlier this week, “I forgot about media day for the playoffs.”

Buescher goes into the postseason with momentum after winning the regular-season finale at Daytona International Speedway. It was a 1-2 finish for RFK Racing.

“It’s really cool knowing we were locked in a while ago that it wasn’t a last-moment getting in,” he said. “We didn’t have the stresses of Daytona like we’ve had in years past, just doing everything we can to get in. It’s been a lot of fun the last several weeks, but [also] realizing we have a lot of racing ahead of us yet. What’s important for us to know is what worked for us this year, to know being consistent has been huge, but also to execute on a high level, to be clean, and to go to the racetrack to win races and do what that takes. Take some chances.

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“I think it’s important not to get caught up in the extra distractions of the playoffs, the extra pressures, I would say, for some. I think it’s important not to let it be extra pressure for us; just go to the racetrack trying to win another race and committing to that, I think, is the best way for us to keep moving forward. We’ve built up a nice cushion of playoff points through the last five weeks, most specifically, but it certainly gives us a little bit of breathing room early. I just want to make sure we don’t change what we’re doing. It’s been a very good season.”

Simply put, it’s a business-as-usual approach for Buescher & Co.

“This was one of our goals on the season, to make the playoffs,” Buescher said. “[We had] several goals – it was to win races, it was to make the playoffs, to get both cars in the playoffs, and to run for a championship. We set very similar goals last year. I think we said we wanted to win races and make the playoffs, and we didn’t quite reach that but felt like we were close to doing it. With that, we set hefty goals this season but felt like they were reasonable.”

The three-time winner isn’t just in the playoffs — Buescher might be playing with house money because he has the speed and the playoff points (21) to propel him through the rounds if the team executes. In five weeks, Buescher bagged 16 playoff points through his victories, and a stage win, and was then awarded five more playoff points for jumping to sixth in the championship standings at the end of the regular season.

“It did come quick,” Buescher said. “It’s certainly put us in a good spot to start. I look at it as it’s not really that many points, though. Days can shift so quickly. It’s not much cushion, but also, I think it’s equally important to me not to get too caught up in the points and not go to the track to points race. Again, go to win the race. You win a race in the round, the points take care of themselves, so keep doing what we’ve been doing.

“We’ve executed very well the last couple of weeks. We’ve had some luck go our way 
 and focus on what we can control. Maybe that little bit of cushion lets us take a little more chance at times, but I don’t want to get too caught up in trying to stage race or points race and give up the potential end-of-race opportunity to win.”

The RFK standout qualified eighth for Sunday evening’s Cook Out Southern 500.

Buescher scores RFK 1-2 in thriller under the lights at Daytona

Chris Buescher closed the NASCAR Cup Series regular season Saturday night in Daytona with his third victory as Bubba Wallace claimed the 16th and final playoff spot. Buescher and the No. 17 team prevailed in overtime of the Coke Zero Sugar 400 with …

Chris Buescher closed the NASCAR Cup Series regular season Saturday night in Daytona with his third victory as Bubba Wallace claimed the 16th and final playoff spot.

Buescher and the No. 17 team prevailed in overtime of the Coke Zero Sugar 400 with the help of RFK Racing teammate Brad Keselowski. The two lined up nose-to-tail in the outside lane for the restart, easily overtaking leader Kevin Harvick, who chose the bottom lane, when the green flag flew.

Buescher led Keselowski across the finish line in the first 1-2 for RFK Racing since 2014. It is Buescher’s fifth career victory in the Cup Series.

“It’s so awesome,” Buescher said. “So proud to get Fifth Third Bank in victory lane here with this Ford Mustang. What a heck of a push from Brad in those closing laps for that entire restart. We lined up and worked to get connected. We hardly came disconnected those last couple of laps and it was a little squirrely at times, but that’s what we worked so hard to execute [in] superspeedway racing for two years now.

“We’ve been so close. We’ve been within the last five laps of so many of these things to finally get it done here tonight is special.”

Aric Almirola finished third, Chase Elliott finished fourth and Joey Logano finished fifth. Almirola and Elliott needed a victory to make the playoffs.

Alex Bowman finished sixth, Kyle Busch seventh, William Byron eighth, Harvick faded to a ninth-place finish and Corey LaJoie finished 10th. A win was also necessary for Bowman and LaJoie.

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Wallace finished 12th to earn his first postseason berth and did so after missing a 12-car wreck on lap 95 that eliminated a handful of other drivers who needed a victory in their playoff hunt. The 23XI Racing driver clinched the final spot via points because Buescher was a repeat winner.

Martin Truex Jr. finished 24th and was crowned the regular season champion — an honor (along with its 15 additional playoff points) he clinched after the second stage.

Overtime was set up by a violent crash by Ryan Preece with six laps to go. Preece was hit from behind on the backstretch and sent to the left, colliding with Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Chase Briscoe. When Preece’s car hit the grass, it went airborne and then proceeded to roll multiple times before coming to rest on its wheels.

Preece climbed from the No. 41 car and was put on a stretcher. After initially being taken to the infield care center, he was transported to a local medical facility.

There were 22 lead changes among 17 drivers and three caution flags at Daytona. Truex won the first stag and Keselowski won the second.

The NASCAR Cup Series now moves on to Darlington for the Cook Out Southern 500 Sept. 3 at 6 p.m. ET.

RESULTS

NASCAR Studs and Duds: Chris Buescher steals the show at Daytona

Check out a couple studs and duds from the NASCAR Cup Series race at Daytona International Speedway.

The NASCAR Cup Series came to Daytona International Speedway to set the 16-driver playoff grid and that was accomplished on Saturday night. [autotag]Chris Buescher[/autotag] won with help from his teammate and owner Brad Keselowski in NASCAR overtime for his third victory of the 2023 season.

This came after a scary accident involving Ryan Preece as he flipped very violently to cause the last yellow flag. Preece has been transported to a local hospital but was able to walk to the awaiting ambulance following his nasty wreck.

Following the Cup Series race at Daytona, here are a couple of studs and duds from the overall field.