Ford Performance NSCS Notes and Quotes
Citizen Soldier 400 Advance – Dover International Speedway
Friday, September 30, 2016
Chris Buescher, driver of the No. 34 CSX/Play It Safe Ford Fusion, finds himself 16th in the Chase standings going into Sunday’s final race in the Round of 16. Buescher spoke about his position and what it’s going to take in order to advance.
CHRIS BUESCHER – No. 34 CSX/Play It Safe Ford Fusion – HOW HAS THIS CHASE EXPERIENCE BEEN FOR YOU SO FAR? “It’s been a good experience. We’ve learned a lot through it. We look at Dover as the last race of this round and we really don’t have anything to lose. Chicago and Loudon weren’t the races that we wanted to have and we come into Dover, one of my favorite race tracks. It looks like the weather is clearing out and we should get all of the festivities in today. I’m excited to get on track. This should be a place where we can really have a good run and see if we can advance to that next round. It’s gonna be tough at this point, but this is probably our best race track out of this round, so I’m excited to get going.”
WOULD YOU RATHER GET PRACTICE AND QUALIFYING IN OR HAVE IT RAINED OUT OR DELAYED AND START ON OWNER POINTS? “We definitely want to get everything in today. The way the weather looks right now I feel like the track will by dry within in the next hour-and-a-half to two hours and we’ll be able to get rolling on schedule. I think it’s gonna be best to be able to get practice. We’ll go out there and qualify and see where that starts us off and we’ll go from there.”
YOU SAID THIS IS A RACE WHERE YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE. HOW IS THIS RACE DIFFERENT FROM WHEN YOU STARTED THE CHASE TWO WEEKS AGO? “I hate to say it like this, but it’s kind of nice to be able to go into a race and just worry about doing the best you can and getting that finish and being able to take chances and not worry about if it doesn’t work out. It’s the racing that you’re able to do at the beginning of the year before you’re too worried about the points leading up to the Chase. We’ve been in a lot of points racing situations over the last two years and to be able to have a handful where we can go out and, like we said, we don’t really have anything to lose here today. All we have to do is gain, so, to me, it’s gonna make it to where we’re able to go out here and not worry about it, take some chances, try and utilize some risk and see if we can pull something off.”
WHAT IS IT ABOUT THE MONSTER MILE THAT REALLY SUITS YOUR DRIVING STYLE? “The way I always describe it is it’s like a rollercoaster ride. I just like the concrete surface. It reminds me a little bit of Bristol. It’s obviously its own animal, but there’s just something about it that we’ve been able to run really well at the last couple of years. I don’t have a whole lot of races under my belt here, but we always seem to make it out. It’s definitely that place that can get you in trouble in a hurry, and I’ve been really close to a lot of those situations, but it’s just a cool race track. It’s extremely fast. The landing getting down in the corner is something we usually don’t talk about. It’s an added curve in what we’re trying to get accomplished for the weekend.”
IT’S CSX PLAY IT SAFE, BUT DO YOU PLAY IT SAFE ON SUNDAY? “No, we really don’t have to. That’s probably not what they want me to say, but we really don’t have to play it safe at all. We can go out here and we can try to gamble on fuel. We can take two tires if we feel it’s decent in practice. We have an endless amount of options that are open for us right now because where we’re at, the last two weeks have not been what we wanted. They’ve been tough on us, but it’s put us in a situation now where the only way to go is up and that means we can take whatever chance we feel is necessary. We want to make sure it’s something that could be very beneficial. We don’t want to do something that’s just crazy and obviously isn’t going to work, so there will be a little bit of planning and strategy to it, but we don’t have to play it safe at all.”
WHAT DRIVERS DO YOU UTILIZE AS A MENTOR OR SOMEONE YOU CAN TALK TO? “I think teammates are the first one that you bring up. With Landon this year being a new teammate to me and then with the affiliation with Roush Fenway we pretty much all talk as a group several times during the weekend and then we do our debrief during the week. Those are the guys that we lean on now, and then David Ragan is also a good friend of mine that has been able to offer up a lot of advice through the years.”
