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NASCAR XFINITY SERIES: FORD ECOBOOST 300November 21, 2015Chris BuescherHomestead, Florida THE MODERATOR: We're going to call up our 2015 driver champion, and that's Chris Buescher, and of course Chris is the driver of the No.60 Fastenal Ford for Roush Fenway, and he is our 2015 NASCAR XFINITY Series champion. Congratulations, Chris. 15 points ahead of defending champion Chase Elliott, and you join good company here as you become the second NASCAR XFINITY Series champion from the state of Texas, joining Bobby Labonte who won the title in 1991. Talk about this championship and what's it feel like to be a NASCAR champion. CHRIS BUESCHER: It's obviously pretty big. This is the biggest moment in my career. Just an awesome year for our organization, for our team. The guys did a tremendous job. No DNFs all year, no mechanical failures, nothing that we beat ourselves on. You know, we were flawless in that regard, and it put us in the position to go out and win this thing like we can today. We didn't have to go out there and win the race in order to bring a championship home. We had to make sure we finished, and we did just that. Just so proud of the guys. Just thank you to Ford and all of our sponsors, Fastenal and Roush and AdvoCare and everyone that came on board and helped this year. I think we ran 11 different paint schemes to make it to the end. It was a tough year, but I'm so happy we were able to pull it off, and again, just so proud of my team. They've really stepped up to the occasion and made sure that this happened. Q. Chris, you and I have joked about your Twitter profile before, so now that you are known as the 2015 XFINITY Series champion, any plans to make change that? CHRIS BUESCHER: I might have to modify that a little bit. I may or may not have thought about that already. Q. Chris, was it as hard as you thought it would be to win a championship? CHRIS BUESCHER: It is every bit as stressful as I thought it would be. You know, it's always difficult. This is a tremendous amount of‑‑ a tremendous depth of talent through the XFINITY Series and through all the NASCAR series right now. I think that makes it that much more special knowing that we beat some of the best guys coming up through the sport right now and able to pull it off here at the end. It's a very special, very humbling experience, but you know, it's not easy. You know, this is a very difficult thing to get to, and you know, it was a lot of hard work. A lot of time put in, a lot of after hours by the guys at the shop, and making sure that we did everything we could to be here, and when everybody is willing to do it and they have that drive and everybody is happy and works well together, it puts together an awesome team that has the will power to go do this. So it was hard, but we did it better than anybody else, and that's why we get to sit here right now. Q. This is a little bit facetious, but did you ever think about, let's make a run for the front and scare your crew? CHRIS BUESCHER: You know, today was‑‑ I had a panic moment for them. I got three wide one time, and they got‑‑ their voices elevated over the radio. It was something like a three wide middle, middle being back out, like that's enough. Just be careful. We had to come out here‑‑ I can't tell you how many times Herm told me to keep that right side clean, just knowing that last year here a couple guys got into the fence with the right side and actually cut tires down. I don't think that we had any of that this race. A lot of guys hit the fence, but I don't think any of them ended up cutting a tire because of it. It wasn't an issue like it was last year. But I made sure that we did not get any right side damage to make it to the end, and the guys were on my case the whole time making sure I didn't. Q. As Kerry pointed out, one of two drivers to win a championship from Texas. Talk about the transition, making the trip from Texas to Charlotte to make this happen in your career. CHRIS BUESCHER: Yeah, I was very fortunate that I met the Ragans when I was racing legends cars. From Texas, we raced legends cars out on the East Coast, three months every summer. That's what I spent my summer vacation as a kid doing. We traveled out to Charlotte, we raced 40 to 60 races in that period of time, and we stayed very busy, worked very hard to make sure that we were able to be competitive in all those races, and you know, through that and through a black flag I received for rough driving one week, I was fortunate enough to meet Ken Ragan and got to know David at the same time as David was getting his break over at Roush and started driving the 6 truck with Mark Martin on that part‑time basis. Got to the point where we got to be good friends. Ken got to a point where he said, man, we want to help you. We'd like to see you make this. I think you can do it. But you've got to move to Charlotte. He told me family that, and I'm like, man, we can't. I have two younger sisters out in Texas, both very heavily involved in after‑school activities. Their lives are out there. I can't expect them to uproot for myself. So my parents told me we weren't going to be able to do it, and Ken said, well, why don't you just move in with us. He said, David just moved out and he said, you can just take his bedroom and just keep up with the yard and make sure it's mowed and kept up nice, and we'll see what we can do to give you a hand. So I left the house at just before 16 years old and moved out to Charlotte. Home schooled through what was the rest of‑‑ what was left of my high school years, went and got a GED, and pretty much did whatever I could to stay racing. I worked in David Ragan's shop. I helped on his late model legends cars, and they really helped me get to this point. They really gave me an opportunity that I wouldn't have had otherwise. I've got to thank my parents for being gracious enough to let me move away from home at 16 years old. That was tough on them. But I think after today, they know it was well worth it. Q. I don't know if you heard Jack, but he said you might do full‑time Cup, you might do part‑time Cup. You've talked about wanting to be patient in your development, but what do you feel like you need to learn before you really want to be a full‑time Cup driver? CHRIS BUESCHER: I think if you look and realize that Cup drivers come down to the XFINITY level every race, there's always something to be learned, and they know that, and that's why they do it. To me, I mean, that's part of just seat time. You've got to learn everything you can every race. There's always something different about a racetrack. There's similarities between the two race cars. Now, like Jack was talking about with the rules as close as they are now, there are things that we can bounce back and forth. There's always something to learn. Every time you get in a race car, you figure out something. So I've been clear, I'm not in a rush. If it comes around and that's the first I've heard of that, by the way, so it's kind of like the radio interview where Jack said something four months ago and I found out from my dad. But you know, if that's what it brings, then I'll do my best to prepare for it and be ready, and if not, we'll go try and double up on these XFINITY championships. Right now we're living in the moment, and that's a big weight off our shoulders. We get to calm down a little bit, get to celebrate, get to enjoy the banquet, going to do some offshore fishing while we're down here in Florida, and get ready for 2016. Q. Kyle Larson said that he didn't do a burnout today after winning the race because he felt like it was your weekend, it was your moment to celebrate the championship. Really humbling to hear that, and I was just wondering your thoughts on that. CHRIS BUESCHER: Yeah, I noticed that I never heard him do anything, and that's a class act right there. That's pretty neat. You know, in the same sense, it was his weekend, too. His isn't over. He earned the right to do whatever he would have liked, and you know, I really appreciate it, but he did a heck of a job. They were fast today, and they showed that they were able to pull this thing off. So congratulations to him on winning the race. It's neat to hear. I didn't realize that. Q. Second championship in four years, the other one was the ARCA title in 2012. Can you talk about the Roulo brothers there, just the progression that you had with them racing in 2011, and then winning the championship in 2012, just what did you take out of that experience to get you to where you are today? CHRIS BUESCHER: I think at the time, ARCA was the best stepping‑stone to get into one of the three NASCAR series, the major series, and I learned so much racing, racing with the Roulo brothers. In the shop we worked 90 hours a week during the summer months trying to make sure that we had race cars on track and ready to go. You know, something that we learned from the two full‑time years was just making sure that we were there every race. You can't go to a racetrack and have a malfunction. You can't afford to skip over something in the shop. You can't afford to make a stupid mistake and find yourself three laps down. Our championship year in 2012 in ARCA, we finished every lap of competition that there was to be had. We never finished a lap down. We never had a DNF, and that made us realize real quick, that is a huge part of points racing, and in the grand scheme of things, it's a huge part of racing in general. You can't afford to wreck race cars. It doesn't do anybody any good for points or for that race. And so, you know, there's times to be patient and there's times to get aggressive, and I learned real quick that there was a difference in those periods. We had to make sure that we were smart about it all year in 2015 to get to where we're at now. Just so much little stuff like that as I was growing up in the sport and learning how to drive stock cars I learned from the Roulo brothers at that time period. I'm really confident to say I could disassemble a race car down to a bare chassis and put it back together because of that. It's all things that you learn and understand and makes you appreciate the amount of work that goes into these race cars. The amount of time to get a car ready for a race weekend is absolutely unreal, and when you know all that, you try really hard not to wreck them. Q. Did you have an anxious moment at all when the three guys that you were racing too many the wave‑around to get back to the lead lap and you came to pit road and had to race for the lucky dog? CHRIS BUESCHER: A little bit. I didn't know that they took a very different strategy, and when looking back at it, it was them on older tires. We had our stickers. And honestly, the 42 was so fast, there wasn't a huge chance of them being able to pull off the victory and get the bonus points that would have put us in jeopardy. Even with us being on a different lap, I think we were still 11th on that restart, and there was only one other car that we were racing for the lucky dog, so we'd have been 12th at worst in that scenario, and our clinch spot was 13th. So from a points standpoint, no, it wasn't that bad. I mean, I knew we were in decent shape. I was just trying to get them to feed me as much information as possible so that I knew where we were at and what we had needed to do, who we needed to race. That was probably the toughest part with the pace that Kyle set, both Kyles. It was hard to figure out who was one lap down, two, and on the lead lap. It was a very fast‑paced race. Q. You referenced earlier the black flag experience, and that kind of set you up with a meeting with Ken Reagan. I have not heard that story, so how did that transpire and what did you do and how did it go to that point? CHRIS BUESCHER: So I don't know how in‑depth I want to get on this story. Q. How bad were you? CHRIS BUESCHER: It wasn't that bad. I got black flagged one week for rough driving at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Quarter mile front stretch, legends cars. Everyone knows it's a contact sport there. You've got to do all you can do to make spots up. It was not the only time I got black flagged for rough driving there. I got sat out a week later on, maybe the next year. I got to sit in the tower and watch the race. I said, Man, if I'm not allowed to race can I come sit with you guys in the tower? I don't think they liked me asking that, but they let me. But the original incident, I don't remember what exactly happened. It was a heat race, and I went over to the 600‑‑ my crew chief at the time was already good friends with the Ragans, had grew up with them and knew them, and I think Ken might have dropped a bug in his ear. He said, You need to bring him over and let me talk to him; I'll settle him right down. That he did, after a several‑hour conversation, which conversation would imply that I was getting to talk back. But it was a learning experience, and for me I was 12 or 13 right then. It made me realize that there's a time to go and there's a time to be patient, and from there on out, I got a little bit cleaner, was still able to be aggressive but knew the time and place, and I think that helped a lot. I got to be good friends with the Ragan family from there. Like I said, when I moved in with Ken and Beverly, David's parents, his older brother Adam, they basically let me fit right into the family and go work at David's shop. I had to be home at 7:30 to eat dinner every night. The shop was 300 feet down the road, so I either had to walk or ride a bike. But it was fun. I mean, that's what everyone wants to do right there is do everything they can to get to this point, and I enjoyed every second of it. THE MODERATOR: Chris, congratulations on this championship. Enjoy it. You deserve it, and continued best of luck in NASCAR. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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