Buescher captures Daytona 400 thriller
Aug. 28—With 17 drivers in must-win situations to make the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs, not many eyes were on Prosper, Texas, native Chris Buescher as a real threat to win the regular season ending Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway Saturday evening.
With two wins, Buescher and his No. 17 RFK Racing Fifth-Third Bank Ford Mustang GT was safely locked into the 2023 playoffs. But the hard-driving Texan was determined that his recent two wins were not a fluke. He avoided the "Big Wreck" on lap 96 triggered by Ty Gibbs that swept up 16 cars, and kept his car in the hunt during the dramatic and tense high speed contest on the famous 2.5-mile superspeedway.
Buescher had his RFK Mustang GT in the top five with five laps remaining when the final caution flag slowed the field to a crawl when Ryan Preece took a horrifying and wild series of at least 10 flips down the backstretch. With Preece out of the car and apparently OK, the race was restarted with only two laps to settle the outcome of the final race of the regular season.
Buescher lined up outside of leader Kevin Harvick in the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford Mustang GT. Fortunately, Buescher saw RFK Racing teammate and team owner Brad Keselowski lined up behind him in his No. 6 RFK Mustang GT. When the green flag dropped Keselowski was gave a hard push to Buescher.
Chase Elliott was directly behind Harvick pushing him as hard as possible, for a win would put Elliott into the 2023 playoffs. As the top four cars entered the first turn of the two-lap shootout, Keselowski gave Buescher another timely and critical push and Buescher's car pulled ahead of leader Harvick.
Elliott's push of Harvick seemed to become disconnected for a split second, allowing Keselowski to take second place and the two Roush-Fenway-Keselowski Mustang GTs pulled ahead. Buescher moved his car down to the bottom lane as the cars behind them made desperation attempts to make a last second move to get to the front.
Harvick faded to ninth as Aric Almirola drove his Stewart-Hass No. 10 Ford Mustang GT to the top of the track passing Elliott who faded to fourth. With RFK teammate Keselowski touched on his back bumper, Buescher took the Daytona 400 checkered flag about two car-lengths ahead of Keselowski, who was about one car-length ahead of third-place Almirola, followed by Elliott and Joey Logano's Team Penske No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Ford Mustang GT in fifth.
After a smoky and triumphant victory burnout, an elated Buescher commented on his thrilling third win of 2023 and first ever at Daytona, "We've been within the last five laps of so many of these things to finally get it done here tonight is so special. What a heck of a push from Brad in those closing laps for that entire restart. We lined up and worked to get connected...it was pretty squirrely at times, but that's what is so hard to execute on superspeedway racing. That's as much Brad's win as ours right there. So thankful to Brad for all those pushes at the right time."
Elliott's fourth place finish kept him out of the NASCAR playoffs for the first time in his career.
Elliott commented on his finish, "After the restart, we still had the lane we wanted. We really had all the help from behind we could ask for. I just couldn't stay locked on Kevin (Harvick) like I needed to."
Buescher's Daytona win allowed Bubba Wallace to lock into playoffs on points with his 12th place finish. Martin Truex Jr. earned enough points to clinch the NASCAR regular season championship over teammate Denny Hamlin.
The Round of 16 Playoff Grid of Drivers is now set for the 10-race playoff chase to determine the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series Title to be decided at Phoenix.
Contact Aaron Kirchoff at aaron.kirchoff@greensburgdailynews.com
