Chris Buescher collided with Darrell Wallace Jr. on final laps for Dover win
DOVER, Del. – Having a victory decided by two teammates can go one of two ways. And that depended on who you spoke with Saturday afternoon following the Buckle Up 200 presented by Click it or Ticket at Dover International Speedway.
Chris Buescher, 22, and his Roush Fenway Racing teammate Darrell Wallace Jr., 21, collided with nine laps remaining as they diced for the race lead. Buescher’s No. 60 Roush Performance Ford ended up in Victory Lane. Wallace’s pole-winning No. 6 Ford Ecoboost Mustang ended up on pit road to change a flat tire resulting from the contact and returned to salvage a 17th-place finish.
Wallace emerged from his car after the race clearly frustrated, but taking great care in choosing his words.
“Got run over; sucks it was my teammate,” Wallace said. “I thought he got help from the No. 7, but I just saw the replay.
“I was saving fuel, I didn’t think I was holding him tight and next thing you know we’re almost in the fence. The crappy thing about it is we had a really strong Ford Ecoboost Mustang. Just couldn’t get off pit road to save us and got back there in dirty air. Then we got in fuel conservation mode. I thought we were doing OK until that little incident.
“I would say I’m happy. Roush won. But I’m not.”
The two cars exchanged the lead while negotiating heavy traffic, eventually making contact as Buescher pulled around and Wallace’s car got the worst end of it.
He did not stop by Victory Lane to congratulate Buescher, who said he planned to speak with his teammate on the plane ride back to North Carolina.
“We were on similar strategies to save fuel and were keeping a pretty quick pace,” Buescher said of the situation. “It felt like we were in position to make the pass a couple times and with traffic and some lapped cars, we got the door closed on us pretty hard a couple occasions.”
“It looked like our opportunity. We were late in a tire run and saving fuel, just got a little free on the bottom. We’ll talk about it. We’re heading to the same place, going to get on the plane right now.”
Team owner Jack Roush candidly addressed the situation in the winner’s press conference.
“I had an image in my mind of two of our cars running out of gas on the last lap, turns out one had a flat tire,” team owner Jack Roush said. “It’s the first time we’ve had an incident between our two cars. … I know no one meant to have contact so we’ll sort that out and get everybody feeling good again.”
And, he added, “No worse horror than two programs in position to win a race and have them have contact. …We’ll have to sort that out.”
On the upside, Roush’s XFINITY team cars are still leading the way for the storied organization – all four drivers ranked among the top eight in the standings.
The victory – his second in the last three races — extended Buescher’s championship points lead to 15 over Ty Dillon and 37 over defending series champ Chase Elliott as the series has a week off before heading to Michigan International Speedway on June 13.
Wallace and RFR driver Elliott Sadler are ranked fifth and sixth, respectively, in the standings. Ryan Reed is eighth.