Chris Buescher secured a strong top five in Sunday’s Shriners Children’s 500 at Phoenix Raceway. (Photo: Nigel Kinrade Photography)
AVONDALE, Ariz. — Chris Buescher capitalized on a late-race restart, ultimately finishing in fifth place in what ended up being a chaotic Shriners Children’s 500 at Phoenix Raceway.
After running inside the top 15 for a large portion of the race, Buescher made a charge in the final stage after a caution came out on Lap 266 when Bubba Wallace blew a tire and hit the wall, bringing out the eighth caution on the day. This brought all the leaders down pit road and allowed them to put on their final set of option tires, which are softer tires than the normal compound tire.
On the restart, Buescher charged hard, racing his way up to fourth place when another caution came out on Lap 290 when Ryan Blaney‘s engine expired. This set up another restart, but this time, Buescher fell back to seventh when Ty Gibbs hit the wall, bringing out another caution and setting up a two-lap dash to the finish.
Despite the crazy restarts at Phoenix Raceway and with a win on the line, the drivers were able to keep it clean and race back to the start/finish line to take the checkered flag. This allowed Buescher to work his way back up to fifth place as Christopher Bell held off Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin for his third consecutive win of the 2025 season.
“I am really proud of this team to take this Ford Mustang and get a top five out of it,” he said post-race. “It was a fight today.”
Chris Buescher racing during the Shriners Children’s 500 at Phoenix Raceway. (Photo: Nigel Kinrade Photography)
With the fifth-place finish, Buescher recorded his first top-five finish of the 2025 season and his third top-10 in the first four races, following up a seventh-place effort in last Sunday’s EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit Of The Americas. He also climbed up to 10th place in the NASCAR Cup Series points standings as the Series continues its West Coast swing, traveling to the 1.5-mile oval at Las Vegas Motor Speedway next Sunday for the running of the Pennzoil 400.
One of the big decisions en route to the top-five finish was the disciplined decision by the crew chief of the No. 17, Scott Graves, who made the call to wait and use both sets of their option tires until the end of the race, which helped Buescher mount a late race charge.
“I felt like we were there on the yellows (standard tires) and kept getting run all over by reds (option tires), and I was just sitting there waiting our turn,” said Buescher. “We finally put them on and ended up in a place where it was kind of the same time as everybody else. We didn’t see the big movement, but we had them on at the end when a lot of others ran out.”
Even with the help of the option tires to earn a top-five finish, Buescher still prefers only one tire per race weekend but gave Goodyear praise regardless for the way the option tires raced during the race.
“It made it interesting. I am still a proponent of a single tire when we come to a weekend, but Goodyear did a great job,” Buescher said. “That red (option) tire was a lot of fun.”
