Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Southern 500 Media Availability | Darlington
Saturday, August 31, 2024
Chris Buescher, driver of the No. 17 BuildSubmarines.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse for RFK Racing met with media members ahead of on-track activity at Darlington Raceway for the Southern 500. One of NASCAR’s crown jewel races, it also serves as the regular season finale with Buescher holding onto the final playoff spot by 21 points.
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 BuildSubmarines.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse
WHEN YOU’RE IN THIS POSITION COMING INTO IT, ARE YOU LOOKING BACK THROUGHOUT THE YEAR ON THE WOULDA, SHOULDA, COULDAS, WHETHER IT WAS LAS VEGAS WITH THE WHEEL, KANSAS, DARLINGTON, ARE YOU FOCUSED FORWARD?
“We’re on this weekend. All that is stuff that hurts and will when you do stop to look back at it, but ultimately it’s not anything that’s changing our situation right now and would really be a distraction at this point. There’s no changing it, right? So definitely things that you look back on, and we’ll clean up as a team. Things I can clean up as a driver and do differently. And then just situations that certainly could have gone better. We’re focused on this weekend now.”
HOW MUCH ARE YOU PLAYING OFFENSE VERSUS DEFENSE BECAUSE YOU HAVE ENOUGH OF A POINTS MARGIN THAT’S SOMEWHAT COMFORTABLE? HOW ARE YOU GOING TO GO ABOUT THINGS THIS WEEK?
“For me, this is one of my favorite racetracks. I absolutely love coming to Darlington. I had a chance to win this race last time we were here, and ended up in one of my less highlight-worthy moments. For us it’s how do we come in and win this race? How do we be in contention to win this race? I think I just don’t like to be a points racer. I’m aware of our situation. I feel like we can come out here and do what we’ve been doing every week, bringing fast racecars to the track. But a lot of times I feel like we’ve had speed to compete for wins and then days that we need to execute a little bit better all around. For us, that’s kind of the same thing we’ve got looking at us for this go. We’ll pay attention. It’s something we started probably around Pocono time, just aware of the cars we’re racing if they have catastrophic or bad days. Just know what that means for us. And if you do have to be a little more aware of your situation, we can pay attention to that. But ultimately I want to be in contention to win this race and close the deal out that way and not worry about any of the rest.”
AS WELL AS YOU RAN LAST YEAR, THE WINS, AND ALL THE SPEED YOU GUYS HAD AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SEASON, ARE YOU SURPRISED TO BE SITTING HERE COMING INTO THE LAST RACE IN SUCH A PRECARIOUS POSITION?
“In a way, I guess. We’re third of the cars without a win on points. I think that’s probably the biggest surprise is that there have been as many different winners this year as there have been. On the flip side, we’ve had a lot of speed this year. We’ve been really close at a lot of races. We just haven’t sealed the deal. That’s been very frustrating at times because that was one of the the bigger goals we had on this season was to make sure that we fired off with the potential that we had around this time last year. And we did. It was good to go to a race track and have speed at types of race tracks that, honestly, we just haven’t been very good at in the past. And we were good at short tracks and intermediates and road courses are still really strong for us. All those things were going well. We just had a couple of runner-ups and very near misses. So I think that it’s been a great year, we just don’t have any trophies on it yet. We didn’t expect to be in this position and unfortunately, it’s where we’re at, but I am pretty confident in what we’re able to do at Darlington and what we’ve had as an organization this year at RFK that as long as we do everything we need to, we’re going to be in good shape.”
DURING THE RACE, DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHERE BUBBA IS RUNNING, WHERE ROSS IS RUNNING, WHAT THE POINT SITUATION IS? DO YOU ASK NOT TO BE UPDATED? WHAT DO YOU LIKE AS A DRIVER?
“I’m not going to ask for silence, but no, I don’t need the updates either if it’s not significant. Ultimately, it’s just a distraction from what we need to do to go race. It’s just a different mindset going into these scenarios as we look at playoffs here. I feel like every year, we talk about points a little bit earlier in the season, and to the point where I feel like it comes up at Daytona now. So for us we need to go to these things and do our own deal in our own race. But no, it’s not something I’m going to ask for constant updates. When you’re in the car, you’re not, I guess I’m not, I’ll speak for myself, I’m not completely aware of the race scenarios and everything that’s playing out, and I don’t really need to be if it’s not something that I can affect the outcome of. There will be a time and place for that and maybe that’s towards the end. It’s been a scenario where some of the cars we’re racing have had bad days. If we have a day or we are involved in an accident, it’s kind of updating on that situation and what we need to do to make sure we recover, but no, you’re certainly not going to hear it from my side of the radio asking for updates.”
SO, WHEN YOU COME TO THIS TRACK WITH SO MUCH ON THE LINE FOR SO MANY DRIVERS, MOST OF THEM SAY THEY LOVE THIS RACE TRACK, WHETHER THEY’VE HAD SUCCESS HERE OR NOT, AND HAVE A LOT OF CONFIDENCE HERE, BUT EVERYBODY CAN’T DO WELL HERE, RIGHT? WHY DOES EVERYBODY FEEL SO CONFIDENT HERE, AND WHAT IS IT ABOUT THIS TRACK?
“Because we have composite bodies now. There’s not a big penalty for big misses, I think. It gives a lot of people confidence that they did not have a couple of years ago. It’s such a cool racetrack. There’s so much history here. It’s a place that drivers love. Me being one of them, that wasn’t very good here for a long time and took a lot of learning, but I always loved it. It was always one of my favorites, regardless. The speed we’ve been able to have in the last couple of years has certainly helped me enjoy it more. It’s just a cool racetrack that’s unlike anything else that we go to. I think everybody has an appreciation for that as drivers and enjoy the challenge of it. We all want to be better at it, but ultimately it’s just such a fun race track that you can get behind it quite easily.”
SO HOW MUCH DID THIS TRACK FRUSTRATE YOU AT FIRST? AND THEN HOW WERE YOU ABLE TO LEARN IT? WHAT DID YOU DO IN GENERAL?
“It wasn’t so frustrating coming to this racetrack. It’s just a little bit of bad luck along the way. A couple of tire issues earlier in my career here that felt like ended days that were gonna be okay. After that, just kind of got rolling in the right direction to the point where it was always just a little bit better as we went. I had a lot of hard lessons here with metal body cars as well. That was completely on me. As we’ve gone into it, as the lanes moved around with the repave many years ago now, but as it started to age aggressively, it’s constantly changing too. It’s something that requires a lot of focus, a lot of attention leading up to the weekend, and a lot of effort to break down at the end of it. It’s just one that’s progressively gotten better through the years. Our team’s done a great job. RFK has obviously turned a great corner in the last couple of years. And being faster at the race track certainly helps you like race tracks that weren’t your best in previous years. So that’s made a massive difference from where I’m sitting and certainly helps my head space.”
DO YOU THINK DARLINGTON IS A GOOD PLACE TO END THE REGULAR SEASON? AND WOULD YOU EVER WANT TO HEAD TO A TRACK THAT ISN’T DAYTONA AND MAYBE A LITTLE LESS UNPREDICTABLE FOR THIS RACE IN THE FUTURE?
“I like this one. It’s hard. It’s a 500-mile race. It’s going to be 90-something degrees on race day. It’s a fantastic challenge for all the drivers, the teams, everybody out here, and I think that’s a great way to head off into our playoffs is to make everybody work for it. I’m not saying Daytona doesn’t have its own challenges. I wouldn’t say there’s a whole lot more predictability here, but maybe a little bit more of controlling your own destiny and understanding that it’s going to be very difficult as well. So many things can happen in Daytona like we continue to see, and it can throw a massive curve right at the end that you just can’t plan for in any way. We haven’t done a good enough job not to be on this bubble right now. I like the fact that we have this race, and I certainly enjoy Darlington being the cutoff this year and it would be my vote not to be at Daytona in the future. I don’t think I submitted my vote early enough to get that one to count.”
