Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Go Bowling at The Glen Media Availability – Watkins Glen International
Saturday, May 9, 2026
Ford Racing drivers Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece stopped by the Watkins Glen International infield media center this morning to talk about tomorrow’s scheduled NASCAR Cup Series race. Returning to the site of his 2024 victory, Buescher enters his 11th career Cup start at Watkins Glen, while Preece marks his sixth start at the track.
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 BuildSubmarines.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse – AS A PAST WINNER, WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE SUCCESSFUL HERE AND UNDER THESE CONDITIONS? “Sorry, I was watching them make laps in the wet. It’s not been raining for ‘how many’ hours now, and there’s a little bit of a dry groove rolling in. It’s so cold. Usually, it would be completely dry all the way around it, and you wouldn’t be chasing the moisture on the straightaways. There is a handful of dry racetrack, and speeds are definitely picking up. I think that the weather looks okay for the rest of our day, where we’ll have a pretty normal practice and qualifying. I’m excited to get on track. This is my favorite road course that we come to. I’ve loved this place for a very long time. I’m excited to be back. We got to come up here the other week, talking about this weekend, and looking forward to it. The weather was kind of like this, and we all kind of joked that surely it would turn around. It hasn’t done it quite yet, but Sunday looks like it’s straightening out pretty decently. I just want to say how thankful we are to all the fans that have come out, and braved the weather and conditions. I’m sure a lot of people parked where they could and not where they wanted to be. I appreciate everyone sticking that out with us, because I think we’re going to have some great racing this weekend. I certainly hope that we don’t have to mess with wet conditions. I don’t really enjoy that. Talking with Brad [Keselowski], we’ve had experiences in wet conditions through the years, and he always brings up Montreal from 2009. I bring up COTA (Circuit of The Americas). Probably the dumbest thing that I’ve ever done in a racecar was run down the backstretch at COTA at 140 – 150 miles-per-hour (mph) with absolutely zero vision… and we drove Crown Vics (Ford Crown Victoria) around Talladega this year at 160 mph. I think that says something. I think this is all my round-about way of saying that I don’t enjoy rain racing, but we are excited to have a little bit of a challenge with the conditions. It’s damp without being wet, and I think that’s the kind of idea we strive for. We’re okay racing in damp conditions and can adapt. But when there’s standing water with a 13/14-inch wide tire –I think the rain tires are even wider – it’s just going to hydroplane. I know everyone has had that happen on the road, and it’s not comfortable. It’s less so with triple-digit speed numbers.”
HOW WILL THE COOLER CONDITIONS AFFECT THE RACING? “We had a tire here last year that had some significant fall-off at the very tail-end of a run. It’s the same tire for this go-around. It was a lot more, but we also have horsepower. Is it enough to offset it? Maybe. I don’t have that answer yet. We’ve wondered if it would just flatline because of the extra power or if the temperature is significant enough to hold long-run speed in the tire for longer. I suspect that might be the case because that is a significant temperature change, especially if the sun isn’t out. If we don’t get the solar radiation from the racetrack, then the track stays that much cooler. You’ll be looking at it not falling off as much, even with the extra horsepower. Nine-hundered horsepower might make it fall off in this cold weather… 1,100? Now, we’re going somewhere…”
IS SHANE VAN GISBERGEN (SVG) STILL THE STANDARD FOR ROAD COURSE RACES IN NASCAR? “SVG has come into the NASCAR world and has instantly shown to be an exceptional talent. Very specifically, we’ve seen it with road races right from the get-go. That’s been a benchmark for the entire garage. There have been a handful of racetracks, and Watkins Glen is one that I feel like everyone has run so much over the years. We’re all closer here. But, we’ve been to new racetracks and we realized that we had some work to do. I’ll stray a bit here… I was probably 13 or 14 years old racing Legends cars. We were traveling a lot outside of Texas because we got comfortable. We could win every week in Texas. We needed to move around, be in front of different people and experience new racetracks. I swear every time zone east that we went to, they were two-tenths faster. It made us realize that we had work to do, and what we thought was good enough, wasn’t. That’s the long-winded way of saying that we still have work to do. Everyone has been studying and playing catch up, and we have put a tremendous amount of work into our road race program. All three teams at RFK being able to dive in, share data on all of us to figure out what works on these racetracks. Watkins Glen is a completely different road course than anywhere else we go to. In the sense that we’ve been able to win a race here, we’ve been able to run really well the last handful of times and cover different strategies which we talk about in-house a little more. If we’re going to have stages being flipped, then we don’t want all three cars on the exact same plan in case there is an untimely caution that either none of us will benefit from or all of us will. Ultimately, you like to cover all your bases. I always feel comfortable coming into Watkins Glen. I’ve been fast here since the first Cup race. We were really decent with Front Row [Motorsports] back then. Crazier things have happened, but finding more neutrals into the Bus Stop did not go well in my inaugural race here. It’s been a good track for us, and we’ll have a legitimate chance to win here with our race cars this weekend.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT EXTENDING THIS RACE FROM 90 TO 100 LAPS, AND HOW WILL A LONGER STAGE 2 INFLUENCE STRATEGY? “We went to Talladega with a massive overhaul of stages, and we’ve seen a bunch of different strategies – three, four different strategies play out. It changed that side of the race pretty significantly. While the end product may not have been what we ultimately all wanted, the strategy side of things made everybody think and try something new. Is 10 laps enough in the stages to stir things up here? Maybe. Probably not to that extent, but it will at least encourage everybody to take a step back, look at it, and maybe see some varying strategies from those willing to take chances for what we don’t have data for yet. Maybe that makes some more movement through the field. As long as we come out on the good side of that, I’ll be happy about it.”
RYAN PREECE, No. 60 Mohawk Northeast Inc. Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WHAT’S YOUR REACTION TO THE PENALTY THIS WEEK? “Honestly, I’m a bit surprised. I’m thankful that NASCAR has an appeals process, so I feel like I can be heard and let that process play out.”
WAS THERE A CONVERSATION WITH NASCAR, EXPLAINING ITS POSITION AND YOURS? “I was on my mower, mowing my lawn at about 4:30 p.m. in an area that does not have great signal. I just saw that I had a missed call, so when I made the call back, I found out that I had a penalty. At that point, I’m thankful for RFK, for Chip [Bowers] and everyone there for their support. I’m thankful for having Chris and Brad [Keselowski] as teammates and for them being the great teammates that they are. I’m excited to go through the appeals process. At least I can feel like I can go through it and share my side.”
DID YOU REACH OUT TO TY GIBBS? “There is nothing right now, until after an appeals process.”
WILL YOU BE MORE HESITANT ON THE RADIO MOVING FORWARD IF YOU DO NOT WIN THE APPEAL? “At the beginning of the season, we were encouraged to be ourselves. I’m not going to change being myself, but what I can say is that I’m excited for the appeals process, and I look forward to going through that.”
HOW WILL THE COOLER CONDITIONS AFFECT THE RACING? “I echo Chris in that regard. We might be surprised having that little bit of extra horsepower. It might create a little bit more tire heat, which will make them a little bit more of a handful. I just think there are a lot of unanswered questions at this point. I like the direction for what we’re trying to do – create fall-off. If we can keep creeping up on that to where tire fall-off beats fuel load in the racecar, then you’re going to see a lot more strategy play out. My focus this week, preparing for Watkins Glen, is keeping up with this guy (Buescher), because he’s a road course ringer himself. I’ve enjoyed studying what he does in an RFK car and being what we strive to be. Hopefully, that’s trying to put one of these cars in victory lane this weekend, and make Jack Roush and everyone at the RFK Racing company proud.”
HOW SIGNIFICANT, FINANCIALLY, IS THIS PENALTY TO YOU? “I’m feeling pretty good about the appeals process and not having to deal with that. But, that is a substantial amount of money.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT EXTENDING THIS RACE FROM 90 TO 100 LAPS, AND HOW WILL A LONGER STAGE 2 INFLUENCE STRATEGY? “To me, that last stage is longer. It kind of breaks up when you’re pitting and when you’re not pitting. If you look at last year’s race, even at like Lap 85 you started to see people hit this peak and really fall. Having that extra 10 laps is only going to magnify that. If you choose to short pit, try to make time by not having traffic to get clean air, it’s a risk. The risk is that you’ll have to go that much extra on tires and potentially have that peak fall off when it happens. I’m happy because it’s more important to make the tires fall off than fuel. A lot of us pit and can make it on fuel. It’d be nice to start having to pit because the hard tires are going to continue falling off, and we need to come in for a set. I’ve liked the direction that Goodyear has been going in over the past year-and-a-half, hearing us race car drivers. I think the fans see the product there. I feel pretty good about it.”
WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED FROM CHRIS BUESCHER TO HELP GUIDE YOU THROUGH ROAD COURSE RACES? “Well, when people kick your butt on road courses, it kind of forces you to be better. I have no problem going to work, thinking I’m not good enough. Actually, I enjoy that. When you look around for road racing, I look at SVG, AJ Allmandinger – I look at Chris. Then we go to intermediates. There are certain drivers that things just suit their styles. My short track racing background suits the road racing style, but from a speed perspective, there’s a lot of things I can do better as a racer, and I continue to try to do better. The goal for me here this weekend is qualifying in the Top-15, Top-10. It’s a big goal, but I feel like we can, which is going to give us options going into the race. Once we get racing, I feel really good about my racecraft and what we do there. I enjoy the challenge. I’m not scared of a challenge. I look forward to Watkins Glen, because this is a racetrack that I haven’t been racing all my life, but I grew up playing it on videogames. So, I feel like I got a lot of laps around here. I’m just trying to be better.”
