Asked what winning does for his confidence, Chris Buescher said it’s “always big to be able to pull off a win.”
Speaking before the NASCAR media corp during his media availability, the driver of the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports Ford – coming off his first career Sprint Cup Series victory just four days earlier in the Pennsylvania 400 at Pocono Raceway – talked about what winning the race does for him and his team.
“I remember on the XFINITY side winning at Mid-Ohio. I am not a road course racer by trade, that isn’t how I grew up, but it brought in a new confidence for every racetrack we went to going forward,” Buescher said. “We still had a lot to learn on the ovals then and we actually didn’t get our first oval win in 2014, we had to wait until the next year. It is just a matter of getting the team jacked up and everybody on the same idea going forward that this is for real, a big moment.”
He discussed how much more of an impact winning a race in a series with a Chase format has versus winning a race in a series with a season-long points format as he did last season in the XFINITY Series when he won the series title.
“This win with the Chase being the way it is and the point system different from last year in XFINITY, a win basically turns our whole season around,” he said. “It changes everything. It is no longer one win and you move up a spot or two in points. It is one win and you potentially have a spot in the playoffs of our sport. We are not there yet because we have to get into that top-30 but with that win, it gets everybody excited to get to that point.”
The victory will clinch a spot in the Chase for Buescher provided he’s 30th or higher in points by the time the checkered flag flies at Richmond on September 10.
Buscher currently resides 31st in points, six points behind 30th place driver David Ragan. With both having a 27.8 average finish, he will have to finish each of the next five races at least one or two spots better than Ragan to out-point him. Both are evenly matched as they’ve both finished eight times in a position above their season to date finishing average. Ragan, however, has completed more laps than Buescher and had one less DNF.
“We really shouldn’t have been out of it,” Buescher said. “It has just been some circumstances that have gotten us a little off track and from my standpoint, I was trying to add it up and my stock car racing career starting at 16 when I started racing ARCA, I have had three cars that we have had to throw away or at least front clip. That is a rather small number and we have gone through four this year alone. In that circumstance, we have just had really bad luck on superspeedways this season.”
