Ford Performance NSCS Notes and Quotes
Duck Commander 500 Advance – Texas Motor Speedway
Thursday, April 7, 2016
Chris Buescher, driver of the No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Fusion, will be making his second NASCAR Sprint Cup Series start at Texas Motor Speedway. The Prosper native was in this event a year ago with Front Row Motorsports and finished 30th. He spoke about returning to his home track before today’s practice session.
CHRIS BUESCHER – No. 34 Love’s Travel Stops Ford Fusion – TALK ABOUT YOUR HOME EVENT? “It’s always nice being back home. I’ve got a lot of family and friends coming out, so there’s no extra pressure, but get to see a lot more people, which is definitely nice. It’s the second time coming back here on the Cup side and I feel like we’ve made some pretty big improvements from where we started this race last year, and we have some pretty good notes to go off of from Fontana this year, hoping that a lot of that will translate into this race being that the surface is worn out. It is bumpy. I feel like there are some places where we can improve, just trying to figure out how to make it all carry over into this race track. I like coming here. I like how it moves around a lot. It’s gonna be a busy week because it’s the home track for Love’s as well. There’s just a lot going on, so I’m ready to get started here.”
CAN YOU ELABORATE ON WHAT IT’S LIKE TO RACE HERE AT YOUR HOME TRACK? DID YOU COME OUT EARLY? “I did not get to come out early, and if I would have been smart I would have planned on staying a little later being that it is a Saturday night race. I lost track of that one, so unfortunately, we’re just here for this short period of time. It’s nice because I’ve raced on all the circuits here – the fifth-mile out back, the quarter-mile. We’ve done some road course racing in the infield, and I think I won one race on the Dirt Track out there in a Legends car. I’ve been to this facility more times than I can count. I’ve watched more races from my parents’ season ticket spot in the grandstands than I can count, so it’s pretty neat. I always know where they’re at and I can actually see them from the driver intro stage, which is pretty neat. They’re right there on the start-finish line and have been here since I think this place opened. It’s been a long time, so it’s pretty neat to be on the other side of the fence now and actually being able to run it. Like I said, I watched a ton of races from up in the grandstands, and I’m not a very good race fan because I want to be participating so badly that it drives me nuts watching. It’s nice to be a part of it now.”
IS THERE A PART OF YOU THAT STILL WISHES YOU WERE MAKING SOME LAPS IN THE XFINITY SERIES? “Yeah, I want to be running more over there, but more as a double-duty standpoint now. I feel really good about where we’re heading this year on the Cup side and it’s been a little bit of a rocky start just looking at our finishes, but we’ve had speed at some of these race tracks – not all of them – but we’ve had speed at a couple to get started here and we just haven’t had things really go our way. I’ve made it pretty clear that I would still love to run a handful of XFINITY races whenever the chance arises, and it’s hopefully gonna come around to the point where I can start doing a little bit more over there because I feel like the added seat time is so important right now, especially just trying to learn these Cup cars. So, yeah, I definitely want to be running as much as possible if an extra race was on a weekend where we’re already at the race track. It’s hard to say no you don’t want to do it.”
HOW MUCH DO YOU THINK RUNNING XFINITY WOULD HELP YOU IN CUP? “I think we see it pretty often – a lot of guys will run that double-duty. Kyle is obviously the one that everybody goes to, but Harvick and Junior and I know Chase is doing it this year – I think Blaney is gonna do a couple. A lot of guys go back and forth and get the extra seat time, and they’ve been racing at the Cup level for many, many years. They wouldn’t keep doing it if there wasn’t a benefit, so from my standpoint and being my first year in Cup, I definitely want to be over there running as many races as possible. Things have not worked out perfectly to be able to do it yet, but I’m pretty confident that as we go through the season and should be able to run a handful of races on the XFINITY side over on the Roush side.”
WHAT IS IT LIKE FOR YOU GOING FROM WINNING A TITLE IN THE XFINITY SERIES TO LEARNING THESE CUP CARS AS A ROOKIE THIS YEAR? “It’s tough, but it’s something that I fully expected. I didn’t plan to come over here and be running top-5 in week two after Daytona, but it’s going to be a learning experience. I’ve told the whole team that. I said, ‘Be patient because I have a lot of learning to do.’ It’s a very new situation, not only for myself but it’s a new crew chief to me with Bob, it’s a new team, most of the guys on the 34 are different from what they were last year, and there’s the new relationship with Roush Fenway and Front Row Motorsports. There are so many moving parts that we’re having to try and adjust to right now that it’s gonna take a little bit to get everything flowing smoothly and start running more competitively. Until then, yes, it is a hard transition to come off of a championship year and be getting the finishes that we have so far, but it’s not due to lack of effort and it’s not gonna stay where it’s at very long. We’re gonna get better to the point where we start feeling a lot better about our finishes and hopefully where we can start coming back up in points this year.”
WHAT WERE YOU THINKING WHEN YOU SAW BIFFLE’S NAME ON YOUR WINDSHIELD LAST WEEK? “I told everybody it was an April Fool’s joke. I got asked that more than how the car was handling last week. My Twitter stuff blew up. There’s all kinds of little memes out there. It was a bit of a mess all over a little bitty sticker. I think they figured out what happened and it was actually just an oversight, not even on our part – just from where we got the windshield. Now it’s something funny to laugh at. It had some people spun out, I will say that. I never expected such a big commotion and I think we were asked to actually change the name during practice, which the decals are underneath the windshield now where they’ll sandblast or peel off, so that was a little bit of a far off request to be happening in the middle of practice. We had more important things to be working on.”
FONTANA CHEWED UP TIRES, SO WILL YOU LEARN FROM THAT HERE AND WILL TIRE MANAGEMENT BE A KEY THIS WEEKEND? “I would definitely say so. Maybe it’s not to the same extent as Fontana, but there is definitely a lot of tire wear here. The surface has aged really well, in my opinion. It’s a lot of fun to go to these places where you’re just out of control as you get deep into a run. It’s here, Fontana, Atlanta, Kentucky – places like this they put on some of the best races, in my opinion, and I love coming to them. Tire management was a huge part of racing in the ARCA Series, being that the tires did fall off very aggressively there. When I came over to the XFINITY side early, at the time the tire was very bulletproof. It was hard to really abuse them and I think we’ve kind of trended back towards that per a lot of drivers requests and a lot of fan requests. I think they’re doing a good job, Goodyear is, with the tires to make them more raceable and make it fall off later in the run to make better racing, hopefully, as the race goes in. I love it. I think it’s gonna be a very big part of strategy and I think you’re gonna see four tires almost every time we come down pit road.”
ROUSH FENWAY JUST ANNOUNCED GRAY GAULDING AS A DEVELOPMENT DRIVER. DO YOU HAVE A COMMENT ON THAT? “Honestly, I don’t know a whole lot about it, being that I’m on the Front Row side of it this year. I think the April’s Fool joke announcing a new driver development guy might have been a little bit more true than I even realized. I think it’ll be a good deal. The way it’s been explained to me, I haven’t had much briefing, but it’s just another driver development program very similar to the way I came into the Roush organization. I came into it at a lot lower level and a lot earlier I guess, but I think it’s gonna be good. I think it’s just another chance to hopefully have another car for them to get information off of and to build that program up.”
