Chris Buescher Coasts on Fumes to Checkered Flag in Buckle Up 200

After contact with his teammate Darrell Wallace Jr., Chris Buescher gambled on fuel and nursed his No. 60 Roush Performance Products Ford to the checkered flag in the Buckle Up 200 at the Monster Mile. This was also Buescher’s first victory in three races at Dover International Speedway.

“I never know what to believe and you never know how much you need to save,” Buescher said. “We were really just trying to go easy on the throttle and then at the end, we just had to let it coast at least half of the straightaway.”

“It was really tough to do and I felt like we were going really slow,” Buescher said. “You have to convince yourself to do it. But we made it to the end and we had enough to do a burnout.”

“It was nerve-wracking for sure,” Scott Graves, Buescher’s crew chief said. “You know you’re close and you don’t know exactly how much it was going to take. But we knew we were going to be OK when everyone else came in and we had a lap to play with at the end.”

“Once we got down to that point, I was feeling better about it.”

This is Buescher’s second Xfinity Series win of the season and with the win, he maintained the points lead over Ty Dillon by 15 points.

Buescher’s victory, however, was not without controversy due to the contact with teammate Bubba Wallace, who cut a tire and soldiered on to finish a disappointing 17^th.

“It is my teammate so I can’t really say much,” Wallace said. “I asked the spotter after the race and he said we got run over. I was saving fuel there and Chris just ran over me and he ends up winning.”

“It should be interesting Monday morning. We just got run over. It sucks that it was my teammate,” Wallace continued. “I was saving fuel. I didn’t think I was holding him tight and the next thing you know we are almost in the fence.”

“The crappy part about it is we had a really strong Ford EcoBoost Mustang and we couldn’t get off pit road to save us and we got caught in dirty air and then we were in fuel saving mode. I thought we were doing okay until that little incident. I would say I am happy Roush won but I am not.”

Matt Kenseth, behind the wheel of the No. 20 Reser’s Toyota, overcame an early tire issue to finish in the runner up position.

“We had a great race car and I actually thought it was all going to work out for us,” Kenseth said. “I had to pit out of sequence and that let us a set of tires short. We got to stay out and lead some at the end and I honestly didn’t think that anyone could run that long on fuel.”

“We came up a little short but we had a really, really fast race car.”

This was Kenseth’s 13^th top-10 finish in 21 races at the Monster Mile and is his third top-10 finish in the 2015 season.

Regan Smith, driver of the No. 7 Breyers Chevrolet, took the checkered flag in the third spot. He also scored the $100,000 Dash for Cash honors provided by the Xfinity Series.

“We had to work hard overnight because I didn’t like where the race car was,” Smith said. “They made good adjustments and we had very fast pit stops.”

“Fuel mileage races are frustrating though,” Smith continued. “I haven’t been on the good end of one yet. Disappointed about that but proud of the effort today.”

Smith advised that he had a child so that is where he intended to utilize the $100,000 bonus from the Dash for Cash. This was Smith’s fourth top-10 finish in 11 races at the Monster Mile.

In spite of it being his nineteenth birthday, Erik Jones suffered another heartbreak in the Xfinity Series race after disappointment in the Truck race the night before. Jones missed pit road and then got a speeding penalty to boot, however, was able to soldier on to finish in the ninth position.

“I just missed it,” Jones said. “It’s tough to get onto pit road here. I should have practiced it. It just didn’t work out at the end.”

There was also another crash involving Ryan Blaney, Brian Scott and Jamie Dick. The initial incident was between Blaney and Brian Scott, the latter of whom started spinning. Unfortunately, Jamie Dick then plowed into Scott with violent impact.

“The 22 (Blaney) was kind of out of control and he got real loose off (Turn) 4 so I got a run to his inside going into Turn 1. I just feel like he didn’t give me any room,” Scott said. “I went in there and he was stuck to my door. It just caused me to just suck around. As soon as I turned down in the corner I was loose.”

“It sucks. I guess it’s a product of restarts here at Dover. That (second hit) hurt.”

The 18 slipped a little bit off of four and the 2 got inside of us and must have got loose or something,” Blaney said. “Unfortunately we got in the fence there. It was unfortunate because I would have liked to see where it went.”

“It was only lap 50 and I wish we could have raced more than that. They put it back together and we got what we got. It has been a rough last couple weeks for us. Hopefully we can get it turned around eventually.”

Austin Dillon finished fourth, Kasey Kahne fifth and Chase Elliott, Brendan Gaughan, Ty Dillon, Erik Jones and Jeremy Clements rounded out the top-ten.

2015 NXS Buckle Up 200 Race Results

# = Rookie, Fin = Finish, Str = Start, Pts = Total Points, BPs = Lap Leader Bns Pts, TLd = Times Led, LLd = Laps Led. (i) Ineligible for driver points in this series