Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Food City 500 Media Availability — Bristol Motor Speedway
Saturday, April 11, 2026
Chris Buescher, driver of the No. 17 Trimble Ford Mustang Dark Horse, has one career NASCAR Cup Series victory at Bristol Motor Speedway. He stopped by the infield media center before practice and qualifying to talk about his goals for tomorrow’s race.
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 Trimble Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE TO BE BACK AT BRISTOL? “Well, it’s my favorite racetrack, so I’m always excited to come down the tunnel here and walk into this half-mile. It’s obviously a racetrack that’s had a lot of stories through the years. We’ve gone through a lot of our own from being able to get that Night Race win to run really well here pretty much every time we come, so that’s always optimistic coming into this one. With that, I think we’re ready to get after it. I think the PJ1 is actually the one thing we do know about. We’ve got some questions with the tire and horsepower and what that looks like on the day and we’re getting ready to answer those.”
WHAT DID THAT WIN IN THE NIGHT RACE DO YOU FOR YOU IN YOUR CAREER? “I would say that I hear a lot of drivers talk about bucket list races and ones they want to win more than any other one, and I don’t have many of those. There’s not a whole bunch circled. I just want to go to the racetrack and win every week, but the Bristol Night Race was that one that was special from the time I was a kid, so that was a huge one on a personal level from my side of things. That race was wild. We’d run between us and Brad, we led a ton of laps that day and were able to pull that win off. We hadn’t really gotten our program to where it needed to be yet, and we showed up here and put everything together and made it happen, so it was a huge boost for RFK in general to get that first RFK win with the new group and set us up to kind of go into the next couple of years and string some wins together. It was a really big momentum boost. Obviously, coming off a rather lengthy winless streak from Pocono way back in my rookie season, so it was a big momentum-builder, big for the entire organization and then, like I said, to cross that bucket list race off. Now we just need another one.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL HAVE THE BIGGER IMPACT TOMORROW? TIRES OR HORSEPOWER? “Practice is always hard here, especially when our groups are split. I was just watching O’Reilly practice and when they get that much time, I think 99 laps was the most seen out of a car. That’s a ton of time, a ton of heat. Without that, I don’t know that we will have all the answers, but I do believe that the tire side of things will be more impactful than the horsepower for here. This racetrack has so much banking and so much speed that I think you just don’t feel that horsepower difference as much as you will at a North Wilkesboro, as much as we did at Martinsville or certainly as we will at Richmond. I’d say my gut tells me that the tire side of things is going to be the bigger unknown, but the horsepower could very well put an exponent on the tire side of things. I don’t know that we’ll have all the answers after practice, but I certainly expect it to be different from what we’ve had.”
WHAT IS IT ABOUT BRISTOL THAT SUITS YOUR DRIVING STYLE AND WHAT IS THE BIGGEST KEY FOR YOU HERE? “To me, this is a very similar, in ways, to Salem, Indiana – the Salem Speedway. I ran ARCA there. It was my first ARCA start and it happened there. It’s a high-banked half-mile that just has a lot more character. You come here and this is the polished version of it. It’s the fast high-banked racetrack that gives you different ways to get around it, different ways to attack. You have to be on the entire time here. There’s no rest, and it lets you as a driver make a difference, I feel like. On top of that, I’ve been fortunate enough to be in a lot of good race cars here through the years and that’s helped me have a feel that I know I like, that kind of chase, and that’s put us in the hunt to win a handful of these things through the years going all the way back to the Xfinity side. For me, it’s short track racing. It’s what everybody grew up doing and it’s just on a whole other level here, but it’s just always been my favorite track to watch growing up watching NASCAR to being able to run first laps here, ironically, in a Legends car when we were supposed to be running pit road and we just kind of slammed it up the banking and made that happen. It’s way too fast for Legends car, by the way. That was pretty dumb, but from the get-go I’ve just always loved this place and we’ve been able to put good runs together and we constantly enjoy the challenge that it presents.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM THE TIRE TEST HERE AS FAR AS WHAT PROBABLY WOULD WORK THE BEST WITH THE HORSEPOWER PACKAGE? “I think that coming out of it that was where I didn’t see where the horsepower made the biggest change, but certainly seeing where we know we’ve had very different races here over the past two years now. We’ve had 25-lap runs that tires are worn out and you can’t make a difference from behind the wheel and it just is what it is. We’ve had races where we feel like you can go 45 laps and abuse it and pay that penalty, and if you save it, you can run 60-80 laps. We’ve gone through wild temperature swings. We’ve been all over the map on what this racetrack looks like and what the flow of the race looks like, so with this one it seems like the prediction or the hope is that with the added power to try and offset to where the tire is not to the point where it comes apart or wears out in 30 laps again, but still wears out and still lets you from behind the wheel and from back at the shop making those setup decisions make a difference in whether or not you’re going to have a great short run car or a decent short run car and a really great long run car. There are opportunities to adjust to that. I don’t have many answers beyond that. It’s just kind of the guess work of what we’re feeling like. There’s probably going to be some different strategies on that side and it could make for some really good, exciting racing and some good opportunities for us.”
CHRISTOPHER BELL THINKS THE TIRES DEGRADING COULD PUT ON A BETTER SHOW. DO YOU AGREE WITH THAT? “To an extent. I think that the most extreme example is when we had tires that wore out in 25 or 30 laps, it was very minimal laps, that was too much in my opinion, to the point where you couldn’t make a difference. You had to get in line and ride and try to save everything you could and then we were still shredding tires. It looked like it was snowing in here from all the Kevlar flying in the air, so there’s a balance. I hope that we don’t go to that extreme. I don’t think so. I think that with it allegedly holding up a little bit better, but then putting the horsepower back to it that I hope it gets us similar to what we had the last race, where I feel like you had the ability to make a difference throughout runs.”
WHAT MEMORIES DOES KANSAS BRING BACK FOR YOU? “Well, it’s not bad. You’re referencing the closest loser ever. I love Kansas. I really like that racetrack. Our mile-and-a-half program has been super strong the last couple of years. I think that last season at RFK and the 17 group, Vegas was probably our weaker mile-and-a-half out of all the ones we went to, and we ran really well at Vegas this year, which gives me really high hopes as we head to the next handful of them. I’m not not looking forward to going back because of a near miss. It’s been a really good racetrack. I love the fact that we have different lines. It moves around. Most of our mile-and-a-halves at this point have gotten to the point where we can run bottom, middle, top and have different lines and different opportunities to make speed. With that, I think that it’s gonna be a really good measure for us. We’re really optimistic about that one, just knowing how well Vegas went for us and knowing what our program looked like at those style of racetracks last season.”
DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT KANSAS RACE? DO YOU GO BACK AND WATCH IT? “Not until you ask (laughing). No. It’s not living in my head, but obviously we’re gonna get close and the replays will start coming up and you’ll start thinking about, ‘OK, I know what I want to do differently if it unfolds the same way again.’”
IS IT AS IMPORTANT TO BE OUT IN CLEAN AIR ON A TRACK LIKE THIS WITH AS MUCH SPEED AS YOU RUN COMPARED TO A MILE-AND-A-HALF TRACK? “The answer no one wants to hear is, yeah, it always matters. I tell people all the time, people that are familiar with racing that maybe aren’t, you roll down a back road at 45 miles an hour and I promise you nobody wants to stick a license plate out the window and try to hold onto it. That’s 45 miles an hour. Aero matters at any speed, where you’re all chasing everything we can and clean air makes a difference ultimately. Is it negated by horsepower and less dependence on the aero package and the simpler diffuser? We certainly hope so and believe that it should help, but it’s always there. Ultimately, it’s always going to be there, so you’re always gonna try and be up front. You can help control your pace. You can help save tire there from the same standpoint, so you’re always gonna take all you can get.”
ALL THREE RFK TEAMS ARE IN THE CHASE NOW AND NO OTHER TEAM CAN SAY THAT RIGHT NOW. DO YOU THINK THAT SAYS ANYTHING ABOUT YOU GUYS AS A TEAM? “I think when we talked about the Chase coming back and with the variances, we were stoked about that because, honestly, that is easy from our side of things to go to the racetrack and be consistently in the hunt. We need to be better. What that shows is we are competitive. We are good at being consistent about it. We are good at maximizing whatever we may be bringing to the racetrack. We are good at making smart decisions and we haven’t had bad luck too much. Martinsville sure felt like bad luck, but we haven’t had too much really throat punch us, so we’re able to bounce back and just be strong in even the days that are tougher. Yeah, it certainly shows that we have a resilient organization from the days that aren’t where we need them to be, and it shows that when we have good days, we are having good days and we are putting points up on the board. Ultimately, we need to be putting trophies up on the shelf and that helps take care of the rest of it. When we went into this season with the Chase format back, in our minds there’s no doubt that we’re gonna be able to make ourselves a Chase contender. It’s how do we make ourselves a championship contender?”
