Ford Performance NSCS Notes and Quotes
Duck Commander 500 Advance – Texas Motor Speedway
Friday, April 10, 2015
Chris Buescher, driver of the No. 60 Safety-Kleen Mustang in the NASCAR XFINITY Series and No. 34 Dockside Logistics Fusion in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, is racing in his home state of Texas this weekend. He stopped by the infield media center to talk about that and other issues.
CHRIS BUESCHER – No. 60 Safety-Kleen Mustang and No. 34 Dockside Logistics Fusion – TALK ABOUT WHAT YOU’VE LEARNED SO FAR? “It’s been nice getting the extra seat time, especially with the no testing policy now. I think we’ll take all we can get, so we’re enjoying it. We’re learning a lot as we go. The track conditions are changing a lot. The weather has been pretty different today, so there are a lot of things we can take into the XFINITY qualifying coming up here. The guys have been changing a lot on the Cup side of it and been trying to see what would apply, but we’re pretty much where we are for qualifying on the XFINITY side. Our guys made a couple good gains on our Safety-Kleen Mustang yesterday and I think we’re gonna be in good shape for qualifying. We put in a couple different setups and found one that we really seemed to like and some of our teammates liked as well, so we’re looking forward to getting to qualifying here and then we’ll try to take from that qualifying and see what we can apply towards the Cup one.”
FRONT ROW SAID YOU’LL DRIVE AT BRISTOL AND TALLADEGA. ANY REASON WHY RICHMOND ISN’T ON THAT LIST AS WELL? “Nothing going on for Richmond, just trying to keep our focus on the XFINITY side. The schedule at Richmond would be extremely hectic and it’s not fair to my guys on the XFINITY side and the 60 guys to be trying to run back and forth all day like that. We’re sitting in a really good spot in points right now over there and we need to make sure that we put in all of our efforts to be able to go win that championship. If that means sitting out a weekend in the Cup car, that’s absolutely OK. It’s always been from the beginning this was just gonna be a little extra something to help out a Ford Performance team and Roush was generous enough to let me go do it, so we’re excited to be able to run Bristol and Talladega. We’ll have CSX on board. Some things that have come up that have been really neat, but, at the same time, we’re 100 percent focused on our XFINITY championship chances right now.”
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE THINGS YOU’VE LEARNED THAT STAND OUT RUNNING THE CUP AND XFINITY CARS? “I learned our XFINITY cars need a lot more horsepower. That’s something I wish we had, but there’s been several things. The handling characteristics are pretty close now. The power is a lot closer. As we go into the races we’re able to learn a lot through the extended length of the Cup races, we’re able to think about how the car changes throughout a run, that adjustable track bar on the Cup side is interesting because it makes you realize real time how much it affected the race car through a run. You know that we’re sitting there on the XFINITY side and we do a round and we go back out and you’re on a different set of tires, the track conditions are a little different, everybody is coming back up to pace and you’re in a different place in traffic on the race track. There’s no good judge, whereas real time you can get a pretty good feel for it and I think that’s something I’ve talked to Scott a lot about is just trying to be more pronounced on our adjustments on the XFINITY side knowing what they do on the Cup side. That’s been one of the major hitters. Another thing with track conditions, the Cup race being after XFINITY it doesn’t help a lot there, but throughout practice where we get a feel and you’re able to watch as the groove widens out and where the rubber is setting in the race track, things of that nature that I think help and I think you see it a lot. Guys that go into that Cup Series and run there and get a couple seasons and then decide to come back to the XFINITY side always run extremely well, so, like I said, extra seat time is never a bad thing.”
WHAT HAS BEEN THE OUTLOOK NOT HAVING TO START THE YEAR DIGGING OUT OF A HOLE LIKE LAST YEAR? “This year has been quite the relief. Coming out of Daytona with a second-place finish was awesome. For the whole team it was a confidence booster. Last year was a rough start and for no lack of trying and no reason, really. We were plenty fast enough to be in that race and circumstances and Mother Nature had different ideas, so to be able to pull it off this year and get a solid run, we’ve had several top fives at the beginning of this year, which is awesome. It’s good momentum starting off the year and I think we’re in good shape as we go forward. I think for the whole team it’s been a lot nicer. When we got put in a hole it made us realize that we could go out and take some chances and do what we could because we were already in a hole. This year we’re the complete opposite. We feel like we’re pretty safe up there to where we’re able to take chances, so it’s definitely a plus as we go into all these weekends being up there in the point standings. Even something as simple as getting to park farther up in the garage area and being able to go out there and get through the tech line in time to start practice on time. That’s big. Things of that nature have been a big help.”
DID YOU EVER THINK YOU WOULD BE SITTING HERE ONE DAY DRIVING A CUP CAR AT TEXAS? “I always hoped so. I didn’t really think about actually making it happen. I grew up about 45 minutes east of here and made a lot of trips out here. I sat in the grandstands for the first race here in the monsoon that happened, and been coming back a lot since. I’ve been telling everybody that I’ve got hundreds if not thousands of laps on the quarter-mile on the frontstretch and the fifth-mile of the dirt track out back. We’ve run the road course through the infield in different cars, just not a whole lot of laps around the big track, so it’s pretty awesome to be able to do it. I didn’t really see it coming back in ’97, but it’s pretty neat to be out here and doing this. It’s a dream come true, really, and I’m trying to take advantage of it right now. I know the Cup side is temporary, but it’s still cool to say that I’ve made it up and ran a Cup race at my home track.”
ROUSH HAS NEW CARS ON THE CUP SIDE THIS WEEKEND. IS THERE A SIMILAR EFFORT ON THE XFINITY SIDE? “We’re always working to make them better. There’s nothing specifically new for this weekend that we’ve come up with or that we’ve been working towards. Our group as a whole has done a really good job working together. All of our teams work well. The crew chiefs know that there a common goal in mind and that is if all four cars get better, then our organization as a whole gets better. That’s something Elliott Sadler has been a big help with from the driver’s standpoint. He’s come over and he’s had a lot of information and a lot of knowledge. He’s been to a lot of these race tracks so many times that he’s able to help all those guys out – Bubba and Ryan as well – and I think that’s really put a lot of teamwork in place and even before that we’ve always worked well together. So the guys are working and coming up with new ideas all the time. I think we’ve seen it and our cars are getting better this year. Even the last half of last year we made a lot of progress. This year started off really well for us. They’re working hard at it and we’re getting better. We know that if we go out here and keep running this way we’ll be able to secure that partnership – that full-time anchor partner – and be able to go run all these races and run for this championship. They’ve done a really nice job. They worked really hard through the off-season and they’re not done working yet.”
WHAT WILL IT BE LIKE TOMORROW RACING HERE IN THE CUP EVENT? WILL THE EMOTIONS BE DIFFERENT WITH MORE FAMILIY AND FRIENDS? “I wouldn’t say so. We race in front of tens of thousands of people every weekend and it just so happens that a couple dozen of them are friends and family this weekend. There’s no real emotional difference. We’re gonna go out here and try to do the best we can in both races. There’s always a little bit of added pressure when you come home and you want to do good for the home crowd, but at the same time we’re putting in 100 percent every week and that’s not gonna change this weekend just because of it being a home track.”
