Roush to operate as a 2-car team in 2017; Buescher to drive for JTG-Daugherty
Roush Fenway Racing will field two cars in 2017 as Chris Buescher joins a different team.
Roush said Tuesday it would be leasing the charter from the No. 16 car driven by Greg Biffle to JTG-Daugherty Racing for the 2017 season. JTG-Daugherty has operated as a one-car team since its inception and AJ Allmendinger was the team’s driver in 2016.
And Buescher will be Allmendinger’s teammate. Buescher, who won the 2015 Xfinity Series title for Roush, will utilize the leased charter for a guaranteed starting spot in 2017.
Buescher, still under contract with Roush, drove for Front Row Motorsports in 2016. He won the rain-delayed and shortened August race at Pocono to get a Chase berth but was swiftly eliminated in the first round.
The leased charter leaves Trevor Bayne and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. as Roush’s two drivers. The move to downsize to a two-car team comes less than 12 years after the team put five cars into the 2005 Chase.
“We have been able to shore up our plans for 2017 and we feel that this will continue to move us in a direction that will yield improved performance and results,” team co-owner Jack Roush said in a statement. “We saw improvement in our cars and made substantial gains in our performance at times last season, and we will continue to build on that by maintaining a robust engineering group in order to take the next step by consistently running up front.”
Stenhouse was 21st in the 2016 standings and Bayne was 22nd. The two drivers combined for 11 top-10 finishes and 40 laps led. Biffle, who parted ways with the team after the season, was 23rd. Matt Puccia will continue to be Bayne’s crew chief while Brian Pattie, who was Biffle’s crew chief in 2016, moves to Stenhouse’s team. Nick Sandler, Stenhouse’s crew chief last season, will be the team’s engineering director.
Buescher ended up 16th in the standings thanks to the Chase bid. And despite having a contract with a Ford team, he’ll be driving a Chevy in 2017.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
