By Jerry Jordan, Editor
Looking back through the record books, Chris Buescher has improved his finish at every single road course he has raced in the XFINITY Series and Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series – save one. And this past week at Sonoma was no different as he brought home a 12th-place result for JTG Daugherty Racing.
When his teammate, A.J. Allmendinger, who was a favorite to win out west, went out of the race after missing a shift and blowing the engine, Buescher was the only hope at redemption for the two-car team. Though he didn’t win, his run up to 12th was impressive and showed he is becoming quite good at going fast and turning left… and right.
Asked following the race what he thought of the day, Buescher said after a bad qualifying effort he needed to play some strategy games to move up in the pack.
“Yeah, it was a good finish there at the end,” Buescher said. “I’m proud of this team for the work put in this weekend with our Maxwell House Max Camaro ZL1. I didn’t get as much out of qualifying as I needed to and it put us a little bit behind there at the start, but through some excellent strategy and a good car we gained a lot of points today. It was a good day.”
Buescher’s previous finishes at Sonoma were 30th in 2016 and 19th in 2017.
The next road course on the schedule is Watkins Glen, where Buescher scored a Cup career best of 11th in 2017. In 2015, he was 37th and in 2016 he finished 30th at the iconic course. Looking back on his XFINITY days, Buescher improved from 29th at The Glen to third before he went to Cup. For Buescher, Road America was no different, his runs for Roush Fenway Racing saw him improve from 18th in 2014 to ninth in 2015.
But the news isn’t all great. In 2014, Buescher scored a win at the Mid-Ohio Sportscar Course. He was only able to back that up with a fourth-place finish the following year.
“I enjoy road racing, something to break it up a little bit and I’m ready for the next one,” he said.
And heading into this weekend at Chicagoland Speedway, Buescher is riding the momentum out of Sonoma. Since the series only visits the track once a year and it is now no longer the kickoff race for NASCAR’s playoffs there are questions how drivers will attack the track. Buescher said being there two months earlier could throw a curveball at crew chiefs.
“It’s something you have to prepare for as much as you can beforehand,” he said. “We take notes from similar 1.5-mile tracks, where we know we have speed. We qualified really well and were set to have a strong run at Kansas (Speedway) before getting caught in a wreck that ended the night early. But we take what we learned there and we can still apply it to Chicagoland. The unique thing about Chicagoland this time around is we’re heading up there two months earlier than we have in years past.
“It really doesn’t change our initial approach, it just really means you don’t have a chance to come back and fine tune what you had the previous go around. In one way, it’s harder to be ready for the next year when you go race at the same tracks twice but at the same time, so many of these racetracks change and the weather conditions change in between the two races. Even if they are only two months apart, it changes so much that a lot of what we had the first time won’t carry over. It’s a balancing act on how much you can really learn from the first race.
“The aging in the track makes it where you have to search around for some smoother lines for more grip. With the shape of the track and the banking, you know you’re constantly turning there so it’s a little different from the other 1.5-mile tracks. I enjoy the kind of tracks where we are able to move around a bit and are not subject to one line or groove.”
His only two previous Cup Series finishes have been outside the top 25 at Chicagoland but he had three top 10s during his XFINITY career and two top 5s when he raced ARCA there.