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Chris Buescher won the latest NASCAR Cup Series race at Daytona International Speedway, his third victory of the 2023 season, on Saturday, August 26.
After a scary accident involving Ryan Preece, Buescher started on the front row and got a good push from teammate Brad Keselowski. Buescher was able to hold off Keselowski and Kevin Harvick for the victory.
With the dust setting on the contest, here are three takeaways from the NASCAR Cup Series Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway.
#3 Daytona, the permanent regular season finale
One of the better decisions NASCAR has made in the past few years has been to make Daytona the regular season finale.
When it used to be Richmond for many years and then Indianapolis for a couple, there wasn't much drama as you can usually predict who would be good and bad at those tracks. At Daytona, everyone is on an even playing field and has one last hail-mary shot to make the playoffs.
While some fans may cry about tradition, the ratings and attendance numbers do not lie and it says that NASCAR made the right decision.
#2 It's not the cars
One of the complaints about the Next Gen cars on superspeedway from drivers is that they can't get three wide. However, on this night and prior, superspeedway races have seemingly debunked this.
During Stage 2, we saw three wide action all throughout the pack, rows deep. The impressive thing is that no major wreck came from it.
What this shows is that the Next Gen car is capable of three wide action on a superspeedway. It is on the drivers whether they want to push the aggression button and risk it or not.
#1 Buescher the darkhorse?
If you told fans coming into the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season that Chris Buescher would have their victories before the playoffs, they would say you were crazy. Yet, that's exactly what happened.
Buescher picked up his third victory in the past five races. All of which are on different types of tracks as well. Once again, RFK Racing was the team to beat at superspeedways, even if they weren't as dominant this time.
With his consistency all throughout the season and now the wins to boot, there is no reason Buescher can't make a deep playoff run. With a bit more speed, he can even be a Championship Four contender.
