Chris Buescher has moved past the “bitterness” of Kansas loss

Buescher ended up on the short end of the closest finish in NASCAR history in a last-lap side by side duel with Kyle Larson last Sunday at Kansas Speedway.

A victory would have cemented Buescher into the playoffs for a second consecutive season and provided himself and Ford Performance with its first win of the season.

After some painful reflection on last weekend’s race, Buescher, 31, is already focused on repeating the strong performance of him and his No. 17 RFK Racing Ford team.

“I’ve watched (the replay). I’ve replayed it in my head no less than 100 times and that’s probably pretty conservative,” Buescher said. “I’ve got a list of things I would do different going back and I just need to be in that situation again.

“I’m taking a lot of good things out of it, a couple bad, but ultimately what I look at is that is the most competitive mile-and-a-half that we’ve had, ever in my career with RFK for sure as well.

“That was a better weekend than we had at Michigan when we won. I take that as the highlight of how it all went down and it kind of gets you through some of the bitterness of it as well.”

So far this weekend at Darlington, Buescher – and RFK Racing – look like they have picked up where they left off from Kansas.

Buescher’s team-mate and team co-owner Brad Keselowski qualified second for Sunday’s 400-mile race and Buescher will line up third.

Buescher’s second place run at Kansas was RFK’s third runner-up finish in the last four races and Buescher’s first top five on any intermediate track (1.5 mile). Both are a sign the organization is returning to the high level of performance it demonstrated in the second half of last season.

“Our first eight races of most every season have just been off. That was very important for us this year was to make sure that we started in a much better spot,” Buescher said. “We’ve got four runner-up finishes between the two of us on the year now.

“I guess that’s a really good useless stat for everybody in here. No one is going to talk about that one except us, but it is a measure for us to say we’re inching up on it or we’re right there knocking on the door.

“It’s just about sealing the deal at this point.”

Chris Buescher, RFK Racing, Fastenal Ford Mustang

Photo by: Nigel Kinrade / NKP / Motorsport Images

Darlington looks like a good opportunity for Buescher or Keselowski – or both – to come away with another strong finish and continue to improve their position in the series standings. Buescher sits 11th and Keselowski 15th.

“Fortunately, we’ve been in these situations more to have that fight to the end (in races). It’s good to be in that position and that’s how we’re going to learn and how we’re going to put notes away and be more prepared for it when it happens, hopefully not this weekend,” he said.

“We want to make it a little easier on everybody to celebrate ahead of time, but it’s just a learning experience at this point. It’s something that we need to take in and just make sure our performance stays elevated to the point where we’re able to be in those conversations again.”