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Chris Buescher continues to improve at intermediate tracks.
Chris Buescher has endured a fairly average season so far in the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series, but he eventually turned things around with a seventh-place finish at Atlanta Motor Speedway. It was a much-needed victory for Roush Fenway Racing as well, who have been struggling to stay competitive the last couple of seasons.
“It was a good day. I’m pretty happy with that from start to finish," Buescher said after his season-high finish. "We were able to fire off and make some progress, head forward and stay with it all day. We didn’t really have to work on much. This car has a lot of similar characteristics to our Homestead car and definitely feels pretty good about these low grip racetracks. We’ll keep working on it and try to tweak on that a little bit and get it to a top 5 and ultimately winning a race.”
It is Roush Fenway Racing's second top 10 of the 2021 season, and while there are still 21 races left before the Chase for the Championship gets underway, Chris Buescher is in the final playoff spot.
At Atlanta, Buescher recovered from a 17th-place starting position to finish ninth at the end of the first stage of the race. He then climbed up to eighth in the second stage, giving him a total of three extra points, which could go a long way in helping him make the playoffs.
Keep in mind that Chris Buescher suffered a string of bad finishes in the weeks leading up to Atlanta, making his seventh-place result feel like a win for his team. With that in mind, his rough road started at Daytona, where he was involved in a multi-car incident on Lap 14.
Chris Buescher came to pit road for repairs in the hope that his crew could get him back in the fray, but he was eventually disqualified after their caution clock ran out. This ultimately left him with a 31st-place finish, and a deep hole to climb out of, heading into the rest of the season.
While Buescher rebounded with an 11th-place finish in the following week's event at the Daytona road course, but his troubles were far from over. He would go on to finish 19th at Homestead Miami, 14th at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and 18th at Phoenix, which shuffled him from 16th to 18th in the standings.
However, the Atlanta result proves that Chris Buescher is slowly coming into his own at Roush Fenway Racing and could be a playoff contender before the year is through. Certainly, it's going to come down to how Buescher and his team manage the rest of the season, but they sure seem to be putting the pieces together.
