Buescher scores impressive sixth at Kansas: “That was an awesome day"

Buescher came on strong late in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway and finished sixth, tying his best finish of the year and only his fourth top-10 finish of the season.

Buescher was one of four drivers not in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoffs to finish in the top-10 at Kansas (Kurt Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Aric Almirola were the others).

“That was an awesome day. Looking at the whole weekend, we unloaded with pretty good speed,” Buescher, 24, said after the race. “I didn’t do as good of a job qualifying as I needed to and lost a little track position because of it but I still ended up with a pretty decent pit stall. 

“We were clean there all day.”

On Lap 198 of 267, a 14-car accident erupted on the backstretch after Erik Jones got loose coming off Turn 2. Both Buescher and Earnhardt narrowly avoided the incident.

“Made it through the big accident on the backstretch by a very small margin,” Buescher said. “I am going to say it was within inches, but you go back and look it was probably within several feet, but it felt close, it felt wild.”

The backstretch melee helped clear the way for Buescher to move into the Top 10, where he remained the rest of the race. It was a significant improvement from the spring Kansas race, when Buescher finished 18^th.

“Just proud of everybody back at JTG Daugherty racing. We have been working really hard the last several months to try and get it turned around,” he said. “We hit the summer months and we haven’t had the speed we wanted.

“So, this weekend was a big step in the right direction for us. It’s exciting. It’s fun to come back and run well.”