Consistency is the name of the game often times in racing, and Chris Buescher was the definition of the word Monday afternoon at Dover Motor Speedway, earning stage points in each of the opening two stages before finishing ninth in the Fastenal Ford, his second-straight top-10 finish.
“Yeah, it was a solid day, ’m really proud of our group,” Buescher said after the race. “This Fastenal Mustang had good speed in it all day – probably fifth to 10th is probably where we were going to be. Ended up ninth with the late restart, and had a lap-down car racing us pretty hard. Jacked us up there, but at the end of the day it was solid.
“Everyone did a good job on pit road, kept track position, worked hard on-track, and it’s a solid one. Just wanted to be a little more free on that last race restart to see if we could drive forward a little bit more, but it was good to stay up there all day and in contention.”
With inclement weather sitting over Dover most of the weekend, a 15-minute practice session was the only track activity from Saturday to Sunday, with NASCAR postponing the 400-mile race to Monday for the second-straight year. With the cancellation of qualifying, Buescher found himself fifth on the starting grid based off the NASCAR metric.
Throughout the opening 40 laps, Buescher hardly left the top five. He was running seventh at lap 80 after a 40-lap run under green-flag conditions, and restarted seventh before going on to finish the opening stage of 120 laps in sixth.
Stage two ran caution-free with a green-flag pit sequence splitting it. Buescher found himself on pit road at lap 190 from the seventh spot, and was sixth by the time it cycled. He went on to finish seventh in the second stage, again earning stage points.
The No. 17 began the third segment in sixth and faded to 10th with 90 laps to go. After another green-flag cycle with 75 laps remaining, Buescher was ninth, before the final caution waved with 14 to go. Buescher restarted seventh with seven to go and went on to cross the stripe ninth, his second-straight top-10 overall and second-straight on the concrete at Dover.
Buescher and the No. 17 team return to action this Sunday at Kansas Speedway. Race coverage on Sunday is set for 3 p.m. ET on FS1, with radio coverage on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
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