RICHMOND, Va. — Chris Buescher enters this weekend’s Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway 17 points above the cutline to make the playoffs heading into the final four races of the NASCAR Cup Series season.
It’s a position with which Buescher is familiar. Last year at this point in the campaign, he was also winless but won three consecutive events to end the regular season, beginning with a triumph at Richmond’s three-quarter-mile track.
Buescher, who came close to back-to-back victories early in the season, but came up short each time. He entered the two-week Olympic break on a down note with a 22nd-place effort at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“We’ve been very close to locking ourselves in, but we’ve been very good. Indy was a rough day for us and ended up losing a little bit throughout the day and had a chance to recapture a lot of what we lost there on the final lap and got dinged again, so just a brutal weekend really.
“There wasn’t much good to come out of the race itself, but we definitely showed a lot of potential for speed on the weekend, just didn’t get a chance to pull it all out and put much points on the table. We’ve got to be aware, but it’s not something that we’re up in arms about or worried about.
“We’re plenty capable of progressing and winning a race here in the next four like we have been. We’ve just got to clean up and have a couple things go our way and just do a good job and control what we can from our side.”
Buescher said his RFK Racing team is capable of repeating last year’s success at Richmond.
“Last year, we had been inching towards that kind of success and finally just fired on all eight when we got to Richmond. We executed that day extremely well from race strategy to on track decisions to restarts, pit road,” Buescher said. “We finally put it all together and I think that was a big confidence booster for our team as we headed into the next few. We were able to go to Michigan and do the same things, pull off a little bit of strategy there, but also just execute at the highest level, and then Daytona was very much just a team win for us, being able to work together and have Brad and myself together there at the end of the race is what made that one, but it was something that we talked about a lot.”
Buescher said he struggled at Richmond throughout much of his career and credits team co-owner and teammate Brad Keselowski for his improvement.
“Honestly, from where I’m at have worked hard at it,” Buescher said. “There’s been a couple things on my side that have helped. Brad has been a big part of that. Brad runs very well there and has been able to give me a handful of pointers that have led me down a better path, and our team has stepped up in a massive way and brought some very fast race cars that ultimately just make me look better.
“When we bring those race cars to the track and we’re that competitive off the truck it makes my job a lot easier when I know that we’re in the ballpark,” Buescher added. “When you’re fine-tuning on a weekend versus really swinging, trying to just get close it really makes a difference on how your entire weekend plays out, and that’s where we’ve been. We’ve been unloading so much closer to where we’ve been able to fine-tune speed into it versus being more in a guessing game.”