Ford Racing Notes and Quotes
NASCAR Cup Series
Ford Media Zoom Call
Thursday, October 29, 2026
Chris Buescher, driver of the No. 17 RFK Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse, will be making the 400th start of his NASCAR Cup Series career this weekend at Martinsville Speedway. He spoke about reaching that milestone earlier today.
CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 RFK Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse – HOW DOES IT FEEL MAKING YOUR 400TH START? “Old. That’s what I’ve gotten out of this. I turn 34 today actually and 400 starts coming at us in a couple of days, so it’s kind of gone by surprisingly quick. Fortunately, it’s been a lot of fun along the way. We’ve been able to win in our rookie season and been able to grab a handful of more along the way and been able to improve our outlook on the end of the year on most seasons. With that, it’s a slower progression than maybe we would have hoped at times, but certainly been a blast along the way. It’s pretty wild to sit here and think it was probably just over 20 years ago sitting in the grandstands at Texas Motor Speedway watching these races thinking, ‘Man, it would be cool to do one day,’ and now we’re here saying we’ve done 399 of them. That’s not a bad number.”
WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT THE MOVE YOU GUYS AT RFK MADE AT TALLADEGA? “I was so pumped when they said go, and it was not something that they had this big dialogue with me inside the race car. I was just in there. I said something probably eight or 10 laps prior and I was starting to lose my mind. I’m not gonna lie. It was so slow. I felt like we were just sitting there right off of idle speed and everybody just keeps going a little slower, a little slower and I was like, ‘Alright, somebody is gonna do this.’ And at one point it dawned on me. We were on the bottom. The middle was wide open. The top was running the same speed. I was like, ‘Man, do you think they would get really mad at me if I just took off down the middle right now and went.’ I knew I would ruin any strategy that our team had put together if I did that just out of spite, but props to everybody at RFK that came up with that game plan on the fly. It’s not something that went into it saying this is what we’re gonna do at this lap, it was situational. There was a massive opportunity that presented itself and kudos to everybody on our team for putting it together and getting everybody on the same page at the same time. And you know what? Shame on the rest of them for not reacting. That made it that much more of a story. We came down the backstretch, I don’t remember what lap this was, it was probably 10 or more before we pitted and I remember seeing a handful of cars getting into turn three as we came off of turn two. I keyed up and was like, ‘Is that the entire field or is that just stragglers,’ and they were like, ‘That’s the pack. That’s them.’ And then we ran them down before we pitted on top of that, so it was a whole lot of fun to do it that way. I even told them, I said, ‘I don’t care how this turns out right now, but thank you for getting me out of whatever that was.’”
HOW DO YOU LOOK AT WHATEVER THAT WAS? “We proved it worked in a massive way. The chances of it happening again are slim to none in the same way. At the end of the day, it gave us a great first stage. It gave us a great spot to start stage two as well. It caught a lot of people off guard. That being said, I was a little bit surprised to hear how upset everybody seemed to be about the fuel saving because it wasn’t but maybe two years ago when we were four-wide fuel saving around there probably five or six seconds off the pace and I remember everybody saying it was awesome. We were four-wide at Talladega for 25-35 laps. I was kind of shocked at that and I got out of that race and I was mad because it was like rush hour gridlock. You couldn’t go anywhere. You were doing it at 170 four-wide and you had no options. You couldn’t take off and leave the peloton if you wanted to and no one seemed to have a problem with it back then. I remember everyone thinking that was great, so I think it was the aspect and view of it and the way everybody realized how slow it was, and, two, when there were opportunities to make moves and it wasn’t as exciting as just a group of four-wide all the way around. It hit differently and I’m glad. I’m glad there’s buzz about it and I hope that there are ways to fix it, and I don’t know if I know the answers because at the end of the day there are a whole lot of smart people in this building I’m sitting in right now and there are a whole lot of smart people in this industry that will always figure out what the little bit of movement that will help somebody else going forward or their own team going forward. I don’t know if it can just be policed into not existing or if it will always be there in some regard.”
WHEN YOU LOOK AT YOUR CAREER, WHAT IS ONE MOMENT WHERE YOU SAY YOU KNEW YOU MADE IT? “I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know if I’ve ever felt that way. I feel like we’ve been on pins and needles through a lot of the years and obviously Jack and everybody at RFK gave me a massive opportunity a long, long time ago and just wanted to continue to do well for them and feel like we’re giving back to that opportunity that was afforded me. It always seems like it’s just one or two years at a time and you feel like, ‘OK, we’re in a good spot here, or just OK.’ It was hard to say you ever got to a point where it’s like, ‘Man, this is it.’ But I will say that the last handful of years has certainly felt like I’ve been able to really put stakes in the ground and hold on around here. It’s been fun to get this thing on the upswing and in a good place and in a place where we’ve been able to go win a small handful of races, but a handful nonetheless, and in the hunt to win a handful more, so we’ve got to keep after it and certainly this season we’ve not been in the best place the last couple of months for us specifically. Still, it’s been a great ride along the way. I think when Jack had me arrested, I think that one made me feel like, ‘OK, I’m gonna hold this over Jack’s head – that he’s getting me in trouble and I’m gonna be able to use this to stick around a little bit longer. If he’s trying to play games around here, I’m gonna have to figure out how to play games with Jack at the end of the day.’”
THE LAST THIRD OF THE YEAR HASN’T HAD THE RESULTS YOU’VE WANTED. WHAT HAS HAPPENED? “They haven’t been where they need to be and it’s been frustrating, no doubt. A lot of it has been more around the shorter tracks and from your Loudons to Richmonds to place that we had gotten really good at that we just haven’t fired on all eight as we’ve gotten to the end of this season. That’s been a big area trying to look into. I would say I love Homestead. It’s been a blast of a racetrack for a lot of years for me. Martinsville, the spring was actually looking up to be, by a pretty good amount, our best race at Martinsville before we had that freak deal happen. So, I’m actually excited to go back to Martinsville this weekend. It’s good timing. We’ve got a lot going on this weekend with the 400th start and having Nerds on board. It’s gonna be another fan favorite, so we’ve got to put on a good show. I think we can get there, it’s just gonna take a deep dive as we get into some off time here and figure out where it is that we had a little swing and a miss through some of the short track stuff.”
NERDS SEEMS TO BE A POPULAR SPONSORS? “Yeah. This is bringing back a lot of those Cinnamon Toast Crunch vibes from last season. The Nerds folks have been fantastic. Everybody with the Kroger group has really leaned into this as well and it’s gonna be a very exciting weekend. I’d say you’re not gonna miss the displays. They’re going to be as tall as our haulers, I believe. Enroute right now there are thousands of pounds of Nerds Clusters heading to Martinsville, so I’m sure you can find a sample somewhere along the way. It’s Halloween weekend, so obviously we’re giving out Nerds. That only makes sense. That’s what we’re always looking for anyway, so it’s turning out to be an awesome paint scheme. We’ve been looking forward to this all year. I’ve known about this since April, maybe a little earlier than that, and it’s been killing me not being able to tell people. I just keep saying, ‘Keep an eye out. We’ve got another fun one coming,’ so this is it.”
WITH ALL OF THE YEARLY CHANGE THAT HAPPENS IN THE CUP SERIES, HOW HAVE YOU HAD TO ADAPT THROUGH YOUR CAREER TO MAKE IT TO 400 STARTS? “It’s not been just one thing that’s gotten me there each and every year. It’s being able to adapt on what is needed at that time. We’ve been able to go and elevate. Wherever we’ve been we’ve been able to improve through the year or improve on the previous year, whether that was Xfinity racing and being able to start winning a few races to winning the championship at the end to being able to win that race our rookie season with Front Row. We steadily built up at JTG to where by the third year there we were running in position where a lot of people didn’t expect us to be and there’s a sense of pride in that. I think there’s the ability to walk through the garage and for others to see that. The industry is not blind to it when you can go to these places and have good people surround you and put in the work and do great things together or at least make progress wherever you go and not ever feel like you’re a weak link or bringing it down. I think with that that’s been certainly a help as you continue to go through the year. I think that certainly you can never do that as one person, so that’s not just me, that’s being around good people and people making good decisions and putting in the work and making sure that we’re always building, so that’s why I say I know that this season started off really well and had a ton of potential. We made the Chase with two of our cars, which is awesome and really narrowly missed with Brad, so we’ve had a strong season, but the last third of the year just turned and when it did it definitely has had an impact on all of us. Our Chase has not been what we want it to be, so, right now, it’s about how do we make these last two weeks be as good as they can be so we have a little bit of momentum through the offseason so we can dive into it and feel like we’re ready to go when we get back to these style of racetracks and we’re not sitting here wondering about too much big picture stuff. It’s more getting into the details again and figure out how to improve on the ones we know we need, so it’s changed through the years, but I feel like I’ve found a very solid spot here at RFK over the last couple of years, and in the last couple of years felt like this is home. We’re gonna do this together. We’re gonna continue to build this thing up and be in the hunt to win more races together and try to get in the Chase and be in the hunt to win some championships. We’ve got plenty of years left to do this. I’m not close to giving it up yet. We’re just older than some of the guys that might get their driver’s license
