Column: Chris Buescher Looks For Breakthrough Performance At Home Track Sunday
Column By: REID SPENCER / NASCAR – FORT WORTH, TX – There’s a glaring hole in Chris Buescher’s resume—one he’s determined to fill.
Buescher grew up in Prosper, Texas, 37 miles north of Dallas. By default, Texas Motor Speedway is his home track on the NASCAR Cup Series circuit.
It’s also a track that has baffled him throughout his career. In 15 starts at the challenging 1.5-mile speedway, Buescher has yet to post a top 10.
In fact, he has finished on the lead lap in only two of the 15 starts—his two most recent—and he has led just two of the 4,735 laps completed.
It’s not that Buescher hasn’t had the speed to belie his record at Texas.
“Since Texas has been reconfigured, we’ve been a lot better there from a speed standpoint but haven’t really closed the deal to (finish) better,” Buescher said. “We’ve had really good runs that just haven’t ended well.
“All that being said, you want it to be better, being a home track and having so many friends and family come out to that one. It takes a little extra out of you not to be able to seal the deal there.”
To conquer Texas, NASCAR Cup teams must find a workable setup balance between the two ends of the track, which are markedly different. Turns 1 and 2 are flatter (maximum 20 degrees of banking) and consequently slower than Turns 3 and 4, which are banked at 24 degrees.
Conventional wisdom suggests a trade-off is required, but negotiating Turns 1 and 2 with speed is critical to a fast lap. With the Gen 7 car, introduced in 2022, the trade-off isn’t as extreme as it used to be.
“It was a lot at first, but with this car and the ability to shift (from fifth to fourth gear in the first two corners), that took away a lot of the compromise,” Buescher said. “You’re able to drop a gear and keep that momentum up in Turns 1 and 2 a lot better.
“It’s taken away that old Kentucky feel, where you had to set up for one side or the other. The (Turn) 1 and 2 (end) is not the crawling corner that it was with the last generation car.”
Tyler Reddick found a comfort level with Netflix series “Full Speed Season 2”
When Netflix began filming “Full Speed Season 2,” which chronicles the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, 23XI Racing driver Tyler Reddick found himself in familiar territory.
As a Championship 4 driver in 2023, Reddick was a featured player in Season 1, so when Netflix came calling last year, he knew what to expect.
“I’ve done it both years now, and it’s fun,” said Reddick, who finished sixth in the 2024 final standings. “You get to know the people you’re working with. As long as you are open to and embrace the idea of letting everyone see what happens behind the scenes, if you’re comfortable with that, it’s a lot of fun.”
The five-episode series debuts on Wednesday, May 7, with particular emphasis on the top stars of the sport who qualified for the Playoffs, among them Reddick, three-time champion Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney and Christopher Bell.
Contributors to the series include Dale Earnhardt Jr., broadcaster Marty Smith, former crew chief/current television analyst Steve Letarte, Fox Sports’ Bob Pockrass and broadcaster/pit reporter Kim Coon.
Full Speed Season 2 not only takes a close look at the technical and emotional aspects of competition, but it also highlights the drivers’ home lives and activities away from the race track.
Very little is off limits to the Netflix cameras.
“I think you always (have to draw lines),” Reddick said. “It’s been a while ago now, so I couldn’t even tell you what those things were. You want to share as much as you can, but there are certain things that take place that you could classify as industry secrets, right?
“You’ve got to be careful sometimes, but for the most part, given the environment, it doesn’t happen very often.”
NASCAR displays spoiler infractions that DQ’d two drivers at Talladega
The term “spoiler” was more apt than either Ryan Preece or Joey Logano knew after they both finished in the top five in last Sunday’s Jack Link’s 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.
Subsequently, during post-race inspection, infractions involving that key part of the car spoiled excellent runs and resulted in the disqualification of both their cars.
On Logano’s fifth-place No. 22 Team Penske Ford, a nut was missing from a bolt connecting a brace (specific to superspeedway cars) that holds the rear spoiler firmly in place. The missing nut itself is cause for disqualification, as it violates a rule that mandates all components being in place for the entire race.
After Preece’s No. 60 Roush Fenway Keselowski Ford failed pre-race inspection once, along with more than 29 other cars, his team inserted a third shim (a thin metal part that runs the length of the spoiler and sits between the base and the spoiler blade) to correct the amount of deflection to legal limits (1.5 degrees).
Only two shims are allowed under NASCAR rules, and Preece was disqualified from second place because of the infraction.
“Pretty cut-and-dried, black-and-white,” said NASCAR Cup Series director Brad Moran. “Unfortunate. The 60 had a great race. Same with the 22. But we have to do our job to keep the parity in the field.
“Everybody knows the rules. This is our job to find things like this and clean it up.”
Preece was driving his motor home when he heard the news of the disqualification.
“I was about an hour-and-a-half, two hours in when I got the call that we got disqualified, and the next four hours were pretty miserable,” Preece said before Saturday’s Cup practice at Texas Motor Speedway.
“It was just an oversight, to meet their rule and get through tech. But it is a rule.”
