By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
Chris Buescher left Friday at Richmond Raceway happy… for once.
At a racetrack often tough on the Texan driver, he managed to qualify 11th for Saturday night’s Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond. The effort was his best at the 0.750-mile track and highest of 2019.
“To come to Richmond, a tough one for us and get a good qualifying effort here, that’s strong,” Buescher told Kickin’ The Tires. “Our best qualifying effort of the season at a track that I do not like in all honesty. That will help me come around to this place if we can get a good run out of it.”
With his fourth top-15 start of 2019, execution has been the name of the game for the No. 37 JTG Daugherty Racing Chevrolet. On a weekend that saw little practice time due to on-and-off rain, Buescher was especially proud of the team’s resolve.
“We have to execute and complete this, but it’s a really good start,” he said. “Being we didn’t get that final practice in, I felt we needed that to gain a little bit. For not getting any time on all the changes we made, it was good.”
With the shorter five-minute qualifying rounds on debut Friday at Richmond, Buescher was on the plus side of the change, getting his quick lap in before Denny Hamlin accidentally slowed Buescher’s No. 37 in Turn 1. Hamlin apologized to Buescher following the session.
“It is tough with a short track. It was close,” he said of Hamlin. “We had already gotten a lap in by that point, so it was OK.
“It will happen here, it’s hard to shut down with other cars coming. The sessions are pretty short but we got the process done pretty quickly so it ended up being a good deal.”
Finishing between ninth and 22nd in seven straight races this year, Buescher feels the mid-pack team is ‘Far ahead’ of where they were at this point in 2018.
“We’re probably five spots better week-in and week-out,” he said. “For us to look at places like Phoenix that has been a bad race for us, to get a good run there. We will see where our long-run speed goes [at Richmond] but it’s a heck of a start.”
Partnering with rookie Ryan Preece for the 2019 season, the JTG duo are learning and adjusting to similar issues. What have they learned? There’s no such thing as a perfect car.
“You’re always going to fight the same things,” he said. “It’s just about going faster in the process. If it’s driving perfect, you’re going to drive to the point where it doesn’t. You never get something perfect, you just won’t.”