Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Xfinity 500 Media Availability — Martinsville Speedway
Saturday, October 31, 2026
RFK Racing drivers Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece stopped by the infield media center this morning at Martinsville Speedway to answer questions from the media. Here is a transcript of that session.
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 Kroger/Nerds Gummy Clusters Ford Mustang Dark Horse – WHAT DOES 400 STARTS MEAN TO YOU? “It means I’m getting old at the end of the day. That’s what I keep realizing. To go this long, to be able to say, ‘Hey, we’re in this garage and still kicking,’ still been able to win a good handful of races since I first started and trying to figure out how to win more yet. But, yeah, it’s pretty wild. The number itself doesn’t get my attention until you put it into years and you realize, ‘OK, that’s a lot of years of being around here since the beginning.’ Actually, I was talking to Massaro when he was talking about it being 400 starts. I was like, ‘Hold on, we need to make sure that this is accurate’ because Martinsville has not been my most favorite track through the years, even though the spring was going quite well. I was like, ‘Man, I don’t know that I want this to be Martinsville and be a big deal.’ You remember I missed one race when I got sick and they’re like, ‘Yeah, that’s in there.’ So, it’s true. This is number 400, so it snuck up, but it’s been an absolute blast and will continue to be from here. It’s neat to see. I joke about getting old and seeing some of the drivers come through here and feel like some don’t have driver’s licenses yet that get to come out there and run a truck around this place, so it’s all coming soon, but it’s been a blast.”
HAS THE VIBE CHANGED MUCH SINCE BRAD ANNOUNCED HE WOULD NOT BE BACK NEXT YEAR? “Right now, certainly there’s change with that news, but where we’re at we have been able to get in the Chase and trying to figure out how to drive forward through that. The Chase has not been as competitive as we would have liked. To be honest with you, that has been priority and that has been where we’ve been at, trying to make that part of it more successful right now and let the offseason stuff come around in the offseason, which is extremely close. So, there’s change and there always will be, but I think everybody has been able to stay pretty focused on what’s immediately ahead of us right now, especially as you look at it and saying we’ve got this weekend and one more to go. So, we’re trying to go with that at least for the time being.”
RYAN PREECE, No. 60 BuildSubmarines.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse – DO YOU FEEL LIKE ANY OF THE BRAD STUFF HAS IMPACTED PERFORMANCE OVER THE LAST EIGHT WEEKS? “I’ll be honest with you, I think right now Chris and I have been really in the trenches with our teams to make sure that in 2027 we’re not talking about being 15th or possibly 14th – in that 12th-16th range – we want to be in that top 10 contending range, so coming up with processes and being there like Brad, in what I believe, has been in part of those meetings, that’s what Chris and I are working towards doing. We’re looking forward right now, just like Talladega last week – that stage one deal. You can’t look behind.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE MOVE YOU GUYS MADE AT TALLADEGA LAST WEEK? HOW DID THAT COME TOGETHER AND WHAT WERE YOU TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH? CAN YOU BUILD ON THAT FOR THE FUTURE? “Well, Chris and I both probably haven’t stepped on a peloton, but I can tell you that we, in fact, like I know Chris your temperament and how you are is very calm. Inside the race car, I’m very high strung. That’s just how I operate. I like to know a much information as I can, so if you go back and listen to us versus listening to you guys, it was quite a bit different, but in the moment I would say that I didn’t realize what was truly happening.”
YOU DIDN’T HAVE THIS PLANNED AHEAD? “I don’t know. Did you?”
CHRIS BUESCHER CONTINUED – “I didn’t have this planned ahead, but, to your point, I just didn’t hit the button. I had all this going on in my mind, but I just didn’t hit the button. I thought we had evolved to that.”
RYAN PREECE CONTINUED – WHAT WAS THE MEANS TO THE END? “As far as when they saw the opportunity, I think really when I go back and re-watch the race, I was in a poor fuel position for our group, so I kept slowing the field down getting to less and less throttle percentage to the point we were running 57-whatever second laps, and I thought my dash just wasn’t working, but that was the case and we kept talking about fuel mileage and how I couldn’t do anymore because everybody behind me is slowing down. It’s kind of like when you relate to a short track. When you are saving tires and everybody else just follows suit. They play the game that you’re playing. Well, everybody played that game to the point that we were gonna be in a poor position and then we changed the game and nobody reacted. That’s why I said last week, I think they were just so focused on getting one can of fuel at the pit stop and saving three seconds that they lost 40. That will never happen again. I promise you. People, instead of being tunnel vision on the task at hand in the moment, will see things differently. I was proud of Scott, proud of Derrick, proud of Mike and everybody – the engineers and our strategy group because that’s forward-thinking. That’s looking outside of the box and not being tunnel visioned. In racing, that’s how you succeed.”
CHRIS BUESCHER CONTINUED – “It was a relief because for what the entire field was going through and in our heads behind the wheel, we weren’t having fun either. When you’re trying to save that much and talk about it, things are constantly evolving. We don’t have all that info in front of us. We have one dash screen that’s spitting out the same numbers it does every week, so in that moment it was nice to breakaway. I know for a fact that everybody that was behind us was sitting there trying to figure out if they could go or not, too. You know they wanted to and ultimately just stuck to the strategy they planned on ahead of that and it worked because nobody reacted.”
AS RFK GOES THROUGH THE PROCESS OF WHO WILL LEAD THE COMPETITION SIDE, WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR IN THAT POSITION? “Just racers. That’s where we’re at. We’re trying to figure out if we can find that role and have somebody that’s in the trenches and has been around the garage, knows how to play the games that make speed and can really lead and push everybody to the best of their ability. I think that’s kind of the idea from where I’m at. I’m not the one signing the paperwork for anybody, but for us what we’ve kind of talked about is just trying to find somebody that can help us have faster race cars yet and can have that knowledge base of this car, too. We’re five years into Next Gen now and we’ve certainly found out the sensitivities to it and you need somebody that’s been around and has seen that and can continue to push whatever makes these things work. That’s a big part for us, I think, is finding somebody that’s in the trenches of the racing side of these things.”
RYAN PREECE CONTINUED – “To echo that, when I look at the photos on the walls, I’ve seen race cars change from the seventies to the nineties to 2010 to now. I want somebody that’s gonna help continue to give us the tools to progress and keep progressing, so whatever that may be, whether it’s a racer, whether it’s somebody that’s been in this role or not been in this role, I don’t know, but I want the same type of person that’s gonna give me fast race cars because giving me fast race cars is gonna help me win races.”
HOW CAN YOU WORK AHEAD ON NEXT YEAR KNOWING YOU WILL HAVE A NEW FORD BODY AND WHAT YOU HAVE NOW MAY NOT APPLY? “I think that’s racing in general. Rules may change. Bodies change. That goes back to being quick to adapt. That’s why I pointed out those pictures. You’ve seen somebody get ahead of everybody and then they reap the benefits from that. I want to be that guy. Chris wants to be that guy. RFK wants to be that team and that’s the mindset of what it’s gonna take, so, yeah, the body is changing and how you get that information and how quickly you get that and decipher good, bad, do we need to make adjustments, you need to be quick to react. We as a company, like I said, Chris and I are the drivers. We talk about simulation. We talk about wind tunnels. We talk about attitudes and all these things, but we’re the validation tool. Simulators and all that are great tools, but, at the end of the day, it leads to us, so being part of those conversations to make sure that all the great adjustments and the collaboration that the teams have had with Ford to come with this new body, we want to go out and I’m sure there’s gonna be some sort of a learning curve as Chevrolet and Toyota had at one point in time, but we’re here to go out and put a huge effort into making sure that we’re competing every week.”
CHRIS BUESCHER CONTINUED – “We’ve known that was coming for a long time and our people are gonna really dive into the trenches on it, so I’m pretty excited for the new Mustang Dark Horse SC. I personally think that if we could get a loaner for the offseason of the production car, that would help us have a better idea of what we are gonna be racing.” PREECE INTERJECTS. “I agree. A couple set of rear tires, too.” BUESCHER CONTINUES: “We can cover the tire side. I’ll cover that, but it just seems like the right thing to do.”
RYAN PREECE CONTINUED – NASCAR MAY TRY TO CORRECT THE FUEL SAVING ISSUE. WHAT IS THE NEXT LOGICAL STEP? “Lap money. Did you guys ever hear about the Race of Champions back in the day at Oswego? For some of you that don’t know, they used to give cases of beer to those racers, and lap money, but it also came with cases of beer. So, incentivize. We have incentive to race, but it puts a whole different element into it. Now, I’m sure there are other ways. I’m just a driver. I like the idea of chasing something, so what do you think Chris? Maybe some Nerds?”
CHRIS BUESCHER CONTINUED – “Nerds. Every lap you lead you get another pound of Nerds. At the end of the day, there are too many smart people in this paperclip right now and back at our shops, no matter what the rules are, if there is an advantage to it, people will play to it and that will be part of the strategy and as drivers that will trickle down to what our game plan is. You’re sitting there in that pack last week and it crossed my mind that I could just go. I was like, ‘I could just take off down the middle. It’s wide open and I could just leave this behind.’ Where would it get you at the end. If I had taken off by myself, where would it have gotten us? And the answer is, buried in the back. So, it takes smart people to figure out what the best way to go about it is and that is minimizing time on pit road to set you up for positioning later in those races and the stage moves helped that at Talladega, but then you still don’t have enough handling issues to make the field have the big movement throughout it once you do get down to the end and everybody is wide-open. I think it still comes down to a car that has a very planted feel to it, even though they were freer than the last go-around, but not quite to the point where you had that separation of packs. You still have a wider tire under it than it’s ever had and I think it’s just the handling part of it is hard to bring back. And Talladega, you’re comparing it next to Daytona too, and it’s just so big. You don’t have the handling issues there even when this series was at its worst for handling, so it’s just a little different that way. We’ll try and adapt, but you start enticing us and that starts adding up, you start getting everybody on board with it and we’ll figure out ways to lead more laps and push harder every lap.”
RYAN PREECE CONTINUED – YOU ARE LOOKING TO RUN AN OPEN CAR NEXT YEAR. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THAT? “I think that’s a question for Chip, to be honest with you. Their plans as far as the open charter that they’re running three cars.”
CHRIS BUESCHER CONTINUED – HOW DOES YOUR POSITION IN THE CHASE DICTATE YOUR STRATEGY FOR THIS WEEKEND? “We’re in the Chase, but we haven’t had the success through the Chase that we’d like to have, so, with that, it’s kind of a similar scenario of everything to gain and really nothing to lose right now. It opens up some ability to be aggressive at times if the situation presents itself. It seems like it’s always a little bit more difficult to come up with something off the wall here at Martinsville, but we will have that in our thought process is we have the ability to take some chances here tomorrow and into next week as well.”
RYAN PREECE CONTINUED – IS WHAT YOU DID AT TALLADEGA THE ANTIDOTE TO FUEL SAVING IF THEY KEEP THE SAME STAGE LENGTHS? “No, because I think everyone is just gonna ride as long as somebody else rides. Moving forward, I think whoever decides to go first is still gonna be in the worst fuel position, and if everybody is on the same strategy as you, they’re gonna save time when they come to pit road and then they’re gonna pass you that way. That’s kind of been the thought process of what it is before, so if there’s a team that decides to go before everybody else, well, everybody else is gonna react and then they’re just gonna still be able to kind of 75 percent throttle it while the other team is full throttle. You’re still gonna be at a detriment. If I’m wrong, I’ll buy you a nice steak, but I don’t think I’m wrong.”
YOU THINK FUEL SAVING WILL STILL BE THE MAIN ISSUE? “Yeah. You would say so, right?”
CHRIS BUESCHER CONTINUED – “Yeah. The physics of it essentially is like even fifth in line, you’re not even trying to save fuel but you are part throttle because you can’t just keep pushing through the car in front of you and you can’t take the run, so you just steadily save more gas the further you go through the field. I don’t know if this came around accidentally initially. I doubt it because like I said we have a lot of smart people and somebody figured out, ‘We’ll just jump them on the cycle.’ No matter what the package is, that will exist to some level. It’s just a matter of is coming down pit road first versus coming down pit road 28th is the time difference in the fuel stop is it enough to jump that many positions. That’s the hard part. I don’t have that answer, but you will always save more fuel if you’re not in the first three or four spots or the first two or three rows. And it’s not strictly to save fuel, it’s just how the pack works.”
RYAN PREECE CONTINUED – WHAT RESULTS WOULD MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD GOING INTO THE OFFSEASON? “I think next year is gonna change regardless. There are a lot of changes – body, whatever the rules potentially could be – so I think change is just inevitable. I think the momentum of how you approach it or build upon it from 2026 is important. Martinsville is one of my favorite racetracks. We were strong here last year. I drove up to third and everything didn’t work out in our favor, but we had a really, really good race car. I feel like today we’re gonna be the same, so, me personally, I want to come here and bring home a clock. That’s my goal every time I come here. This is my favorite racetrack on the schedule, so that’s the plan for here and then Homestead, continue to build on that momentum and have a great outing and try and keep climbing the point standings because the loser of our points deal between Chris and I, I believe somebody has to drive around a roundabout and do 500 laps around that while the other person sits in the center. So, I’d rather be the guy sitting in the center in a chair videotaping him doing it, so I’m gonna do my best to make sure that’s possible.”
CHRIS BUESCHER CONTINUED – “We had a jail and bail charity event last week and as we’re sitting in there calling on people we know to try and donate, it did dawn on me that Ryan might come up with something that would require real bail money, so I’m sitting there going through my contacts and was like, ‘I actually need to save that one for the real thing.’ That might be a call. I can’t ask twice in a couple weeks. That probably will make me the Boy Who Cried Wolf. It will seem like I’m just pocketing money, so it’s on our radar that this could end poorly. To Ryan’s point, this is a racetrack he’s loved and it’s helped me get better here, being able to learn from Ryan, especially this place and I feel like we’ve been a little bit better. The last race here was certainly one of our stronger Martinsvilles, I think the strongest Martinsville that we had and just had that freak deal – a bolt on track got caught in the caliper, so it didn’t end the way we would have liked at all, but it would be nice to pick up a little bit of momentum as we had into the offseason. I can’t help but wonder. If you did have a clock, would you stop showing up 30 minutes early to everything? Would you actually just decide to try and be on time?”
RYAN PREECE CONTINUED – “No, I would have three.”
