NASCAR CUP SERIES: COOK OUT 400

July 30, 2023

Chris Buescher

Frontstretch Quotes

An Interview with:

Q. What was your thought when that caution came out? You had it in hand.

CHRIS BUESCHER: Yeah, that was smooth sailing there trying to take care of the Fastenal Mustang. These guys over at RFK, the 17 team, gave me a great hot rod. It was so good. Just trying to take care of it there.

Scott came over the radio, That's working perfect, keep it up, caution. Yeah, that's about right (smiling). I knew even on our green flag stuff we were so strong during the race, I had a good feeling about it there.

Pretty awesome to pull it off. Proud of everybody. That was a long way from the back this morning. Heck of a race for us.

Q. It was seven days ago I spoke to Scott Graves. He said we're a sixth to 15th place car right now. As an organization, we need to take a step forward. Are you surprised it came so quickly?

CHRIS BUESCHER: We've had this one circled since last fall. I was really hopeful this could be the one that would turn the page for us. Sure enough, right off the truck I thought it was.

I hate that qualifying went the way it did. I was sitting there beating myself up trying to figure out what we were going to do there. Made it to Victory Lane here in Richmond. I'd have told you to flood this place three years ago. My opinions are changing quite a bit here (smiling).

What a day, though. That's awesome.

Q. It was fun racing the boss. Is there a way to describe to the fans how much work has begun into this for RFK to get back to Victory Lane?

CHRIS BUESCHER: Probably not. I mean, so much has happened in 15 years I've been there. But the last two years, last 18 months, just to see the turnaround, new car kind of being a good reset for us, to be able to be competing for wins.

A lot of different size racetracks, a couple checkered flags now, some great pit strategy there, great pit stops. It's every department working hard to make this happen and get us this checkered flag.

We've been talking about this a lot. Don't get to ask me about points any more (smiling).