Chris Buescher seizes NASCAR Cup Series playoff momentum with win at chaotic Coke Zero Sugar 400
The first NASCAR Cup Series win for driver Chris Buescher was a fluke while his second came as a surprise more than five years later.
The next trip to victory lane could be a formality.
Buescher’s win during Saturday night’s Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway solidified his spot as the sport’s hottest driver. The regular-season finale delivered his third win in five starts heading into the 10-race Cup Series playoffs.
Whether Buescher is the driver to beat is debatable, but he and his team have clearly discovered a winning formula after just two victories during the previous 278 Cup Series starts.
“Certainly we’re going to have a hard fight,” he said. “But we’re in a heck of a spot.”
Meanwhile, fellow driver Ryan Preece was safe and sound following a death-defying crash on Lap 154 of the 160-lap affair. Two laps down and in the back of the pack, Preece lost control of No. 41 Toyota Camry and ended up skidding into the field and flipping 19 times.
Preece emerged from his car, but medical personnel sent him to a local hospital for evaluation. Doctors released him about 12 hours later on Sunday morning, allowing him to return home to North Carolina.
“If you want to be a race car driver, you better be tough. I’m coming back,” Preece tweeted from the hospital.
Earlier on Lap 94, the toughness of NASCAR star Ryan Blaney, the 2021 race winner, was tested when his car slammed headfirst into the SAFER barrier, buckling the wall coming off Turn 3. Ty Gibbs ignited a 12-car pileup when his car rammed into the right side of Blaney’s No. 12 Ford Mustang.
JGR teammate Christopher Bell bumped the left rear of Gibbs’ No. 54 Toyota as he tried to push the 20-year-old grandson of Hall of Fame team owner Joe Gibbs into the lead and ultimately the 16-driver playoffs.
Instead, a 12th-place finish by Bubba Wallace, driving for Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin’s 23XII Racing, was enough to keep him ahead in the points standings to send him to the postseason for the first time since he joined the Cup Series in 2018.
Buescher emerged from the chaos and high-stakes racing for his biggest win. The 30-year-old gave plenty of credit to veteran teammate Brad Keselowski who helped escort Buescher’s No. 17 Ford Mustang to the finish line for Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing.
“This was as much an RFK win and Brad’s win as it was ours,” Buescher said.
The co-owner of RFK, Keselowski is a 35-time winner, including Daytona’s summer race in 2016. But he has not taken the checkered flag since his 2021 win at Talladega, one of his six victories at the storied superspeedway.
Keselowski’s knack for superspeedway racing has paired well this season with Buescher, who entered 2023 with three top-five finishes at Daytona. He since has Saturday night’s win and a fourth-place during February’s Daytona 500, two spots behind Keselowski.
Once the clean-up of Preece’s crash was complete, Buescher and Keselowski teamed up during the ensuing two-lap overtime. Keselowski, who now has six top-fives this season, didn’t do anything foolish.
“There were a lot of cars breathing down our back,” Keselowski said. “It would have been really difficult to pull a move off without probably wrecking both of us. Of course, we wanted to win today, but we wanted to get fifth in the regular-season points, take all those bonus points into next week.
“That’s going to bode well for us in the playoffs.”
Buescher’s victory ended the playoff bid for Chase Elliott, who has been voted the sport’s most popular driver annually since 2018. Elliott, the 2020 Cup Series champion, finished fourth during the Coke Zero Sugar 400, but he needed a win after he missed seven races this season, six with a broken leg suffered while snowboarding and one due to a suspension.
“Hasn’t been what I would want by any means,” he said. “Certainly going to be some lessons taken from it, and we’ll be better for it on the other end.”
Elliott, 27 and an 18-time Cup Series winner, has been a rising star since he came in during the 2016 rookie class with Buescher and Blaney.
Buescher arrived after winning every step of the way, including 10 times on the ARCA Menards Series beginning at age 17 and three more on the Xfinity Series in 2014-15.
Success came quickly in 2016, though serendipitously. A weather-shortened and fog-shrouded win during 138 laps at the Pocono 500 was not a harbinger.
Instead, Buescher went 223 races without a win until last September at Bristol Motor Speedway.
“It’s hard to not win,” he said. “It’s hard to be a competitor and not win. Certainly difficult where you feel like you’re doing your best to run 15th at times. You get excited when you can get to a top five. Then you get a second place along the way and you’re mad you were that close, couldn’t get the job done.
“It has its ups and downs.”
Back-to-back wins at Richmond and Michigan began a meteoric rise culminating at the sport’s most iconic track. Buescher hopes the best is yet to coming during the playoffs, beginning Sunday at Darlington Raceway.
“It’s safe to say we’re going to be a contender,” he said. “I’m excited for it. I feel very confident.”
Edgar Thompson can be reached at egthompson@orlandosentinel.com
