Chris Buescher

Chris Buescher
Buescher at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 2015
Born	(1992-10-29) October 29, 1992 Prosper, Texas
Achievements	2012 ARCA Racing Series Champion 2015 NASCAR Xfinity Series Champion
Awards	2011 ARCA Racing Series Rookie of the Year
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career
42 races run over 2 years
Car no., team	No. 16 (JTG Daugherty Racing)
2016 position	16th
Best finish	16th (2016)
First race	2015 Auto Club 400 (Fontana)
Last race	2016 Ford EcoBoost 400 (Homestead)
First win	2016 Pennsylvania 400 (Pocono)
Wins Top tens Poles 1 2 0
NASCAR Xfinity Series career
74 races run over 4 years
2015 position	1st
Best finish	1st (2015)
First race	2011 Bubba Burger 250 (Richmond)
Last race	2015 Ford EcoBoost 300 (Homestead)
First win	2014 Nationwide Children's Hospital 200 (Mid-Ohio)
Last win	2015 Buckle Up 200 (Dover)
Wins Top tens Poles 3 36 0
Statistics current as of November 20, 2016.

Christopher "Chris" Buescher (born October 29, 1992) is an American professional stock car racing driver. He currently competes full-time in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, driving the No. 59 Chevrolet SS for JTG Daugherty Racing. The 2012 ARCA Racing Series champion and 2015 NASCAR Xfinity Series champion, he is the cousin of 2012 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion James Buescher.

Racing career

ARCA Racing Series

Buescher's 2013 ARCA car at Road America

Buescher began his professional racing career in 2005, driving Legends cars in Texas for Speedway Legends, Winning over 100 races. (Speedway Legends, worked with several top drivers, David Ragan, Jonathan Davenport etc.) In 2008, Buescher moved to North Carolina to be mentored by NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver David Ragan and signing as a development driver for Roush Fenway Racing,^[1] Buescher began competing in ARCA competition in 2009; he went on to win the series championship in 2012, becoming the only driver ever to compete every lap in a season of competition in the series.^[2]

Xfinity Series

Buescher made his debut in NASCAR competition for Roush Fenway Racing in 2011, driving two races in the Nationwide Series;^[3] he returned to the series in 2013, driving in seven races for the team, in addition to a limited ARCA schedule with Roulo Bros. Racing.^[4]

Buescher's 2014 Nationwide car at Road America

In 2014, Buescher moved full-time to the Nationwide Series, driving the No. 60 Ford for Roush Fenway Racing.^[5] After failing to qualify at Daytona, Buescher had a solid rookie season, finishing ninth at Las Vegas, 7th at Richmond, second at Talladega, ninth at Charlotte, 11th at Dover, tenth at Michigan, and 12th at the July Daytona race. Buescher finished fifth at New Hampshire to earn a spot in the second Nationwide Dash 4 Cash race at Chicagoland;^[6] he would finish 8th at Chicago and 11th at Indianapolis. Fastenal returned to sponsor the 60 at Iowa,^[7] where Buescher finished 14th. Cup sponsors Kellogg's and Cheez-It sponsored the car at Watkins Glen.^[8] Buescher won the Nationwide Children's Hospital 200 at Mid-Ohio on August 16, his first career win.

Buescher returned to the No. 60 Ford in the newly renamed Xfinity Series for 2015.^[9] Buescher started off the season with a runner-up finish to teammate Ryan Reed at Daytona in the Alert Today Florida 300. Then, Buescher followed up that second-place finish with another top five finish, fourth, in the Hisense 250 at Atlanta giving him a tie for the points lead with fellow competitor Ty Dillon. Buescher scored Xfintiy win #2 of his career at Iowa Speedway after passing Chase Elliott for the lead on the final restart of the race, Elliott had lead 114 laps but couldn't hold off a hard charge from Buescher.^[10] Two weeks later Chris would be back in victory lane at Dover International Speedway for his second win in 2015, Chris made contact with teammate Darrell Wallace near the end of the race to make the winning pass, Wallace was upset with his teammate as he cut a tire as result of the contact and would go on to say "I would say I am happy Roush won but I’m not."^[11]

In the final race of the 2015 season, Buescher won his first career NASCAR Xfinity Series Championship at Homestead Miami Speedway on November 21. He finished 11th in the race after receiving the Lucky Dog to get back on the lead lap. Kyle Larson won the race. Buescher was able to hold off defending champion (of the then Nationwide Series) Chase Elliott, Ty Dillon, and Regan Smith in points to win the title.

Sprint Cup Series

Buescher made his Cup Series debut in the No. 34 Ford for Front Row Motorsports at Fontana in 2015,^[12] filling in for David Ragan, who had been substituting for Kyle Busch, who was out for a fractured leg; Buescher finished 20th. Buescher ran five additional Cup races for FRM in 2015.

On December 10, it was announced that Buescher would move up to Sprint Cup to drive FRM's No. 34 full-time in 2016.^[13] Front Row entered an alliance with Roush Fenway.

Superspeedway wrecks plagued the No. 34 team. Buescher started the season with a hard crash at Daytona with Matt DiBenedetto, finishing 39th. He decribed this accident, by calling it "the of the hardest hit of my career". At the Talladega, on lap 96, Buescher was involved in a crash which sent his car into a barrel roll, flipping three times before landing; he was not injured in the accident.^[14] Buescher also wrecked out of the summer Daytona race, finishing last.

Things began to turn around after Daytona, with Buescher finishing 14th in his rookie attempt at the Brickyard 400. One week later at Pocono, Buescher took the lead late in the Pennsylvania 400 by being on a different pit sequence. Buescher took the lead just before a massive cloud of fog moved over the track. After an hour of waiting, NASCAR gave up on trying to wait out the fog due to approaching severe weather and called the race, giving Buescher his first NASCAR Cup Series victory and the second win for Front Row Motorsports. Buescher, with the win, became the first driver since Joey Logano in 2009 to win a race as a Cup Series Rookie of the Year candidate (In 2011, Trevor Bayne won a race during his part-time rookie season but was not running for the Cup Series Rookie of the Year award). Buescher also became the first rookie to win at Pocono since Denny Hamlin in 2006. Buescher also brought Front Row Motorsports its first win in 118 races going back to David Ragan at Talladega in 2013.^[15] Despite the win, Buescher was not automatically guaranteed a Chase position because he was outside the Top 30 in driver points, the minimum standing required to qualify for the Chase. At Bristol, Buescher finished 5th to move into the 30th points position, moving past David Ragan. Buescher passed his teammate Landon Cassill for 29th in the standings at Richmond and locked in his place in the Chase.

He began the Chase in the 13th position in points. Buescher would be easily eliminated after the first round though due to underfunded equipment and poor finishes. He finished 28th at Chicagoland, 30th at New Hampshire, and 23rd at Dover. In the second round, Buescher finished 16th at Charlotte, 21st at Kansas, and 22nd at Talladega.

On November 29, 2016, Roush Fenway announced the sale of their charter for the No. 16 car to JTG Daugherty Racing, with Buescher taking over the new ride.^[16]

Motorsports career results

NASCAR

(key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.)

Sprint Cup Series

Daytona 500

Xfinity Series

ARCA Racing Series

(key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.)

^* Season still in progress
¹ Ineligible for series points

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Chris Buescher.

• Chris Buescher driver statistics at Racing-Reference