Chris Buescher was “very close.”
During the final 143 green flag laps Sunday at Richmond Raceway, Buescher had a shot to kill two birds with one stone.
Buescher could have ended his 218 race winless streak – the longest among active NASCAR Cup Series drivers – and sent the Cup playoff grid into chaos.
But neither happened.
Thanks to lapped traffic and the fresher tires of Christopher Bell, the RFK Racing driver had to settle for third place in the Federated Auto Part 400.
For roughly 50 laps in the final stage of Sunday’s race, Buescher attempted to track down and pass eventual race winner Kevin Harvick. Buescher had taken second place from Joey Logano during the final green flag pit stops of the day and was within 1.1 seconds of Harvick with 49 laps to go.
Kevin Harvick Goes Back-To-Back With Richmond Win
Buescher’s best opportunity to get the lead came within four laps, when lapped traffic slowed Harvick. The main obstacle for the No. 4 car was the the No. 6 Ford driven by Buescher’s teammate and owner, Brad Keselowski.
Buescher would get side-by-side with Harvick, but then lapped traffic, specifically the No. 47 of Ricky Stenhouse Jr., prevented Buescher from completeling the task.
Harvick would pull away and with five laps to go, Bell would get around Buescher for second.
The result was RFK Racing’s first top-three finish at Richmond since Carl Edwards won there in 2013.
“I think it’s a little easy with this format to feel like third place doesn’t matter, but it’s nice to be close and to keep progressing and getting better as we’ve gotten through the summer,” Buescher said. “Really neat to finish here. Really proud of everybody. Just burned the rear tires up. Ultimately that’s on me. Lap traffic didn’t do us any favors, either, but ultimately just got to keep the rears under us a little bit better so we can have a little bit better shot there to get after him for the win.”
The third-place finish is just the second top five of the season for Buescher (Sonoma Raceway). It’s only the ninth of Buescher’s 245-race Cup career. His last top five on a non-superspeedway or road course was in the 2016 Bristol night race.
Before Sunday, Buescher’s previous best Richmond result in 12 starts was 15th in the spring race this season.
For Buescher, the result meant even more after “making highlight reels for all the wrong reasons” in 2022, citing flipping multiple times in the Coca-Cola 600 and his car catching fire during the race on Indianapolis road course.
“It’s not really fair to just look at results because at the beginning of the year we didn’t fire off as good as we thought,” Buescher said. “We didn’t have the improvement. It took us a few months, but we’ve had three or maybe four months now of really solid runs, really good speed, ever since Dover (when he earned his first career pole and finished eighth) really, that we’ve been really close.
“We’ve had some bad luck, had some mistakes that I’ve got to clean up. We’ve made progress through all of it. The results don’t always show it.”
Now two races remain in the regular season for Buescher to win and potentially secure a playoff spot. Only one spot remains in the 16-driver field.
The Cup Series heads to the Watkins Glen (N.Y). International road course next weekend before closing it out at Daytona International Speedway.
Buescher has finished second (Sonoma), sixth (Road America) and 10th (Indianapolis) in the last three road course races and he was the victor of his Daytona 500 qualifying race in February.
“I’m excited,” Buescher said. I’m ready for the win.”