Ford Performance NSCS Notes & Quotes:
NSCS AAA Texas 500 – Texas Motor Speedway
Friday November 16, 2015
Texas native Chris Buescher, driver of the No. 60 AdvoCare Ford Mustang, brings his XFINITY Series lead into his hometown track and talked about being back home, defending his lead and more with media members Friday morning.
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 60 AdvoCare Ford Mustang – TALK ABOUT BEING HOME AND RACING AT TEXAS. “It is always nice to be back home for sure. I did a lot. It was probably the busiest media day I have ever had yesterday. We stayed very busy which is good. We have been traveling for about a week now. We came straight from the SEMA show out in Vegas. I went mentally broke there pretty quickly just looking around. It is nice to get back home. I went and saw my parents yesterday and we got caught up in one of the freak hail storms out here. It has been a very eventful week. Just trying to make it calm down at this point and hopefully get into this weekend and have everything go a lot smoother than it has up to this point.”
ARE YOU INVOLVED IN DEVELOPMENT OF THE SPRINT CUP CARS WITH ROUSH FENWAY? CAN YOU EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN DRIVING THE SPRINT CUP CARS AND THE XFINITY CARS? “They are quite different. Between the ride height rule and horsepower different that is two of the biggest differences that I can feel, along with some other odds and end rules. They are fun to drive, both ways. The Cup cars are a lot faster. I remember testing when we still had 900 horsepower and I remember how much get up they had then. That was a lot of fun. I am kind of bummed I won’t get to race them like that. It is a big difference but at the same time, they are getting closer as the horsepower comes down on the Cup side and as the aero package gets a little more similar with the drag package the way it is. I guess as it evolves it is going to go down quite a bit on the Cup side. It will keep evolving I am sure but we will keep trying to make sure we know how the XFINITY car drives better than the Cup car.”
THREE RACES TO GO, HAVE YOU CRUNCHED ALL THE NUMBERS AND DONE ALL THE SCENARIOS TO TRY TO FIGURE THINGS OUT OR DO YOU JUST SHOOT FOR TOP-1O’S? “Yeah, we aren’t crunching numbers yet. The only number I know is that if we were 100-something points up right now I would feel good. That isn’t the case though. We have three more races. For us it is about getting top-10’s, run hard and be as aggressive as we need to be to get solid runs in. We know we have the speed. We have been fast about everywhere we have gone. Texas is a place where our 1.5 mile program at Roush has been much stronger and the later in the year it is better as we go. We look at tracks where the asphalt is a little older and worn out have been really good for us. We ran well at Homestead, Atlanta and Darlington. Places like this have been really good for us this year. I look at that as a good chance to go out here and get a top-five and possibly win. We will see what we have when we unload here. For me, I have been pretty open about where I stand on points racing and I don’t like to just purely points race but there is a bigger picture right now and I fully understand that and that is what we are working toward. If we can get another win and two or three more top-five’s then we will be in good shape. There is not much else they can do.”
HAVE YOU REACHED OUT TO ANYONE FOR ADVICE ON HOW THEY HANDLED A CHAMPIONSHIP CHASE WHEN THEY WERE IN THIS SITUATION? “I have reached out a little bit. Jack (Roush) has arranged stuff to try to help me understand really where we are at. The ARCA championship in 2012 is obviously not of the same caliber. There was more of a cushion there at the time and here we are in these last three and it has been extremely competitive and we have bounced around that 30-20-point range the last 10 or 15 weeks it seems like. When you look at it like that, it is going to be tough through the last three and if we can just do what we have been doing and keep it in that 20 to 30-point range when we get to Homestead, I feel really good about our chances. Homestead is another one where I feel we should have a legitimate shot to win the race and at least a top-five. Phoenix is the only one I feel we need a top-10 out of it and if we are better than we have been there in the past we will be okay so we will try to work towards that. I have been able to sit down with Ricky (Stenhouse) and go through his two championships on the XFINITY side. He told me that both of his were very different. One he led up through the end and had to be defensive and the other he was trailing and had to be aggressive as possible to go get it. Unfortunately for me he said he liked being behind and catching back up. He said that was easier on him. That didn’t make me feel any better but at the same time it is ours to lose so we can control our own destiny, we can’t control what anyone else does. I know that if we go out there and run top-10 and top-five the last three we will be just fine.”
ANY PLANS FOR 2016 THAT ARE SET YET? “Nothing is set. It has been an awesome year for us. We have gotten a handful of wins and should have had another two that I am saying were extremely close. I look toward next year and more than likely we will be doing another year of XFINITY and I am good with that. I think as you look through, there have been a handful of names that have been rushed up ahead and tried to be put into something that they may have thought they were ready for but it is a very big jump up to the next level. I am glad I got the handful of starts I did with Front Row earlier this year. It made you realize really quickly the competition level and intensity of the racing is a lot different, especially as you close in on the later stages of a race. There is a lot of things that go with moving up, it isn’t just a matter of pure speed. There are a lot of things to learn and if you aren’t ready and don’t perform at that level as soon as you move up it is very easy to get forgotten about, get labeled and not have that chance again as you go forward. If we run another year in the XFINITY in 2016 I am all for it. I am in no rush. I turned 23 a couple weeks ago so I am one of the older guys in XFINITY I feel like now but I am in no rush. I feel good about where we are at.”
DO YOU FEEL LIKE IT WOULD BE COOL TO GIVE THE ORGANIZATION A BRIGHT SPOT THIS SEASON IN WHICH IT HAS HAD SO MANY DOWN MOMENTS IF YOU CAN WIN THIS CHAMPIONSHIP? “Yeah. The Cup side is not hidden from anybody. Everybody knows the situation there and everybody from our side of it is working extremely hard to fix it. We are a bunch of racers and we don’t like running that way, I promise you that. Everybody in the shop is just as competitive as the drivers. They are guys that want to win and have been working at Roush for 30-plus years and ready to get back to where we have been in the past on the Cup side. When we look at our side of things, it has been a really good year for us. I don’t have a good explanation for why it is different between the two. I know we have four teams on our side that work extremely well together and good notes from many years of a package with rules that have hardly changed or have just mildly changed and had some variances in. That has enabled us to have a really good notebook as we go to most of the race tracks. We have like 20 races on this package at some of these tracks we go to and that is an excellent notebook to look at and build off of. When you look at it like that, that has really helped us on this side whereas the Cup side as you are trying to catch up when something changes as you have just figured something out that has helped you a little bit then you are starting over and don’t have a good baseline for the next change. I think that has set us back a little more than I think we thought it would. I think that on the XFINITY side with the rules package staying pretty consistent it has helped us a lot.”
