(Photo: Myk Crawford | The Podium Finish)
DOVER, Del. — It’s something about the concrete.
For whatever reason, and he can’t put a finger on why, Chris Buescher has thrived on concrete racetracks. The last time the NASCAR Cup Series raced on concrete in the fall at Bristol Motor Speedway, Buescher found himself raising a sword in victory lane.
Last season at Dover Motor Speedway, Buescher wheeled his No. 17 Ford Mustang to the first pole of his career and finished eighth. Though he has no particular affinity for the concrete, Buescher said he’s always enjoyed racing at Dover.
“I love concrete tracks, apparently,” Buescher said on Saturday. “It is a really fun racetrack. I’ve enjoyed it from really the first time I’ve been here. Hopefully, the sun comes out and it slickens up a little bit and widens out and gives us a little bit more racing grooves and some more options. If that’ll happen, I think it creates a pretty good race.
“These kinds of racetracks, they just put on a good show to me. They’re fast, you get up on the wheel, you hustle. On concrete, it just gives it a little bit more movement in the car.”
Buescher said that year’s Dover weekend was a turning point in his season. The team started to gain more consistency, and overall, recorded 10 top 10s on the campaign.
A year later, Buescher has maintained a similar form. He has three top 10s and sits 16th in points as his boss, Brad Keselowski, sits 12th.
Buescher admitted that the team faced a major learning curve last season with the Next Gen car and the addition of Keseloswki to the ownership group. But as the new era as RFK Racing has progressed, the team has only gotten better.
(Photo: Riley Thompson | The Podium Finish)
“It took us a little while to kind of get our sea legs up underneath us and get going,” Buescher said. “I felt like once we got to this race last year [and] we got our pole, it was kind of the turning point for us in our group just to say look, we’re finding what we need, [we] are finding some baselines here. We were able to take that forward and run really well at a lot of races.
“Our group has done a really strong job of continuing to stay after it. No one’s getting complacent. We know that you can’t do that in this garage area — there’s too many smart people around. We’re gonna stay working hard and hopefully get that win sooner rather than later.”
Buescher hopes he can remain consistent into the late spring and summer months beginning with Dover on Sunday. Weather conditions led to the postponement of qualifying, which means Buescher will start fifth based on the formula.
The key to success will mean strengths in all aspects of the organization, Buescher said.
“That’s me not making mistakes on pit road speeding, or on the racetrack. That’s unloading fast race cars, that’s making the best-educated decisions for [the choose bix[ or whatever it may be,” Buescher said.”There’s a group of about 200 people at RFK that are all working together to try and make sure that we can do this as a group. ”
Weather conditions have led to the postponement of the Würth 400 to Monday, May 1 at 12 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. Kyle Busch is on the pole.
