Ford Performance Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Go Bowling at the Glen Media Availability
Saturday, August 9, 202
Chris Buescher, driver of the No. 17 BuildSubmarines.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse for RFK Racing, is the defending winner of this weekend’s race at Watkins Glen International. He’s also sitting on the bubble in the 16th playoff spot with three races remaining in the regular season. Buescher spoke about all of that in front of the media before today’s qualifying session.
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 BuildSubmarines.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse – “It is detail racing. Last time we were here we had some really good long run speed. We didn’t fire off great for two or three laps which hurt us in qualifying. It put us in a spot where we had to pass a lot more cars but the speed was there. And we had some good strategy throughout the day and really good execution on all of our pit stops. We kept the car clean and it was almost the easiest win we’ve ever had until those last few cautions. I say that, knowing that we have to be better yet. We have to fire off better. We need to qualify a little bit better. We have done that this year pretty consistently. That was a key focus at the beginning of the year and it certainly carries over to here as well.”
About the pressure of needing a win to ensure a Playoff spot this year compared to 2024 – “We needed a win last year for our sanity. For us, the situation [last year] was very much the same internally. But the repercussions are different this year. There are some differences. We know where we are at in the fight for a playoff spot. A win is the way to guarantee your way in but this year we have to be aware of our bubble. As much as I hate to admit that, it is where we have found ourselves. For us, this weekend, we want to get on track and have really, really solid speed and say ‘let’s focus’. I think where you maybe take a step back and start thinking about the point side more specifically than the race win is through any adversity on the day. When your chance of winning has diminished then maybe there is a Plan B that’s probably more thought through than maybe it would have been several months ago for us.”
About where RFKs short track program – “I want to say it’s pretty decent. I think about our year in general it really hasn’t mattered too much what style of race track we are heading to. We have had pretty good speed. Certainly we have had stronger weekends than others but that is everybody. Our short track stuff has definitely taken big steps forward.”
About racing his RFK teammate for the Playoff position – “I don’t know that it is going to be any different than racing anybody else. Just in the sense that we are all trying to figure out how to win races, how to have the best day possible. We have a fantastic environment at RFK that allows us to share across all of the teams all of the time. I think it is very important in moments like this that we don’t lose that. That has been a focus in the shop and I fully believe that the transparency will be there between all of our teams so that we will all be able to have the best weekend possible. At the end of the day it is going to come down to the execution of it. If we are able to win a race and pull it off it is just going to be normal racing. Go to the race track, do everything we know to do. Control what we can and, at the end of it, if one of us decides to run for a bunch of stage points and the other one doesn’t and is able to get a win, that flips it just as easily as both of us going for stage points. There are a lot of different scenarios and a lot of racing left. In some ways it is nice to be racing against your teammate because you know the level of respect. You know what to plan for when you race around each other. We have certainly had that all year. On the flip side, sometimes it is harder. It is a little more difficult to put a bumper on a teammate and shove him out of the way if the situation calls for it. But it will be good hard racing. That is the agreement within the shop. We are not letting each other have anything. We are going to race. We are all competitors. We are all teammates but we are competitors still. But I think you have to race your own shop with just a little added l level of respect.”
About Daytona being the cutoff race for the Playoffs – “Certainly not ideal in our situation. When you are close to that cut line – and that is mostly on us for not having a win before now. If we had been able to win a couple of races throughout the year to this point then you would say ‘I am sure it is exciting and it creates a little bit of extra drama there [at Daytona] but where we are at it just creates a last second opportunity for a very competitive car that is way up there in points. We have seen it, it could be a car buried in the 30s in points. That’s the hard part when you talk about championship racing and putting your whole season together. When it comes down to that race, and how that can be that kicker that takes a year that you feel you were very consistent and fast and didn’t get the win when you needed to and it kicks you out of the Playoffs. It isn’t my favorite option but I do understand the excitement that it can bring and the drama to it. But, it is on us to win before now. I would like to be sitting on the other side of it saying: ‘it will be what it will be because we are locked in’. If we can do that tomorrow or next week, to get to that point then I can put a little more excitement in my voice when I answer that next time.”
About getting experience with the new restart zone procedure in the Craftsman Truck Series race – “I think the idea is right. We can try and make turn one not be quite as chaotic. I think it is important to give a little bit of benefit to being the leader or being in the top three or four in a race. You shouldn’t have to worry about P8 coming barreling in there and wiping out the front row. And I think that is the idea behind it, to help spread us out just a little bit. It’s equally important that if someone has a bad restart and gets sideways off of turn seven there then the next row has the opportunity to get to him. I think that is why the rule now is that out of the restart zone you get to go racing. You don’t have to stay in line all the way to the start-finish line. I think it has been well thought through to be more rewarding to those that have earned the opportunity to be up front not to be on the defense from somebody that you haven’t seen all day. It does it without taking away the opportunity to still make moves and still make gains if you have a really good car to fire off.”
About Shane Van Gisbergen’s streak of road racing wins – “He is talented, right? None of us are road racers by trade. It’s not what we grew up doing. It’s not the exact craft that we have honed. That being said, we have all had road course aces teach us through the years. But, we all sit down for a week and we go through different things for the race track we are coming into and when we get done with that race we go back to oval racing. I think there is certainly speed out of a handful of drivers that are oval aces but SVG has just come in and he is a rare talent in it. He has been able to find something in this car that works for him. Sometimes I think, 20 years ago in my career, you go to certain places in the country and there were places you showed up and winning was easy. Because if you are in a certain zone, you have to be good enough to win, then everyone strives to be just good enough to win. It makes you move in incremental amounts. But everywhere we showed up we would be 3/10th faster than anybody there it was just because we were racing against the other people in different areas of the country that were just faster. They had faster race cars and better craft. What it did was it forced people to step up. We now realize there is a lot left on the table. We all thought we were all close enough to win these road course races but the truth of the matter is we have time to find. We have to be better. It is just going to force us all to be better at the end of the day.”
