Chris Buescher during the South Point 400 in Las Vegas (Photo: Aaron Brink | The Podium Finish)
LAS VEGAS — Lady Luck was not with Chris Buescher despite an 11th place finish in the South Point 400 on Sunday.
In the midst of a Playoffs run in the Round of 8, Buescher needed to leave Vegas with a better finish and more playoff points.
“We had a restart there today in the middle and lost track position and it was hard to get it back.” Buescher said, “It got a little strung out there at the end and was able to start picking them off one by one. I guess you could say we ran out of time.
“It was a decent day. It’s good to be upset with 11th, I guess, but we just needed to outrun a lot of cars that we didn’t and that’s going to make the next two weeks that much more difficult.”
The RFK Racing No. 17 team seemed to have issues throughout the race, but especially on pit road. Buescher seemed to struggle to get out of his stall quickly, costing him valuable positions.
“Yeah, that was it. It’s hard to get them back. he said. “The pit box was super slick today and that really made it difficult. We lost a lot of spots and trying to get them back was just tough on the day. We’ve got our work cut out for us now.”
“A worst-case scenario would have been in the garage 38th with a handful of the others that made big mistakes, so it’s not that (bad). It just wasn’t good enough compared to the guys we’re gonna be racing, so it was a great day in a lot of ways, but just not good enough.”
Buescher started the race with his fourth place qualifying spot. However, he struggled with track position and finished the opening stage in 17th. At the beginning of the second stage, Buescher lined up fifth but after a pit stop on Lap 144, he fell back to 10th and ended this leg of the race in 15th.
With two cautions during the final stage, Buescher struggled with track position and started 14th on the final restart. However, he was able to fight to gain a few positions before the checkered flag flew and finished the race in 11th.
“We got shuffled back a little bit in some dirty air and it was a struggle back there for a little bit.” Buescher stated, “We got back going and needed some longer runs and green flag cycles to sort it out and we didn’t get it that way. We were able to make some decent work out of it and get a pretty decent finish out of the day.”
RFK Racing co-owner and teammate, Brad Keselowski had a better day as the No. 6 team had a fourth place finish and ran up front most of the race. Buescher, who was the only playoff driver to finish outside of the top ten, will be comparing notes to help his team going forward with the playoffs.
“There will be plenty to dive into and study,” he said. “But we’re a pretty open book so we’ve got a lot of info going back and forth between the groups all the time. We’ll figure out how to be better for next week.”
Next chance for Buescher to improve on his playoff chances will be at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Race coverage on Sunday is set for 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC and radio coverage on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.
