Buescher's Dover finish shows how far team has come

The current run of momentum remains in sharp contrast to Buescher’s delayed start to the season at Daytona International Speedway in February. Buescher was among nine drivers missing out on Coors Light Pole Qualifying in the series’ first try at the new multi-round group qualifying format, a three-round session cut short by rain.

Missing the race and starting the season the following weekend at Phoenix left the team facing a large deficit in the series standings. As the campaign has plodded along, the 21-year-old Texan has made the most of the early setback, steadily advancing to seventh place using the team’s go-for-broke approach with little stake in the championship fight.

All the while, sitting out Daytona has remained in the back of Buescher’s mind.

“Yeah, we always think about that,” he said Saturday after the Dover 200. “Not getting to make our first Daytona start due to the new format, rain, weather, what have you — we were extremely fast, but we took it for what it is and we’ve been going forward understanding that we missed a race and we’re still seventh in points. I look at it as a big plus for our whole team. I’m really proud of these guys for sticking with it and going out here.

“We’ve taken a lot of chances this year. We’ve been in position to do it now. We have nothing to lose in the points, so it’s almost been a blessing for us to be able to experiment a little bit and take some chances that you usually wouldn’t do.”

The highlight of Buescher’s progression came in August, when he emerged at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for his first career victory. Since then, the finishes have been solid but not spectacular — up until last weekend’s super-steady top-five result at the Monster Mile.

Though making monumental steps further up in the standings is virtually out of reach — Buescher ranks 78 points behind sixth-place Trevor Bayne, his Roush Fenway teammate — the team still has chances to make strides over the final five races of the season.

“I mean, that’s our goal,” said Scott Graves, Buescher’s crew chief. “The end of the season, we’re definitely talking that we want to be top-five and in contention every week. Just really want to show people that we’re here and we’re for real and finish off strong, for sure.”

That quest begins this weekend at Kansas, where Buescher finished 16th last year in just his ninth career Nationwide Series start. His results this season on 1.5-mile tracks have been a hodgepodge, but his portfolio of four top-10 finishes in eight races on intermediate-sized tracks this year provides hope.

“It’s been a struggle at first, but we’ve made a lot of gains,” said Buescher, who took seventh place in the series most recent race at a 1.5-mile track, two weeks ago at Kentucky. “Our last couple of mile-and-a-halfs have been really good, so I think we can build on that, go out there and contend and get these top-fives.”

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