Chris Buescher is the biggest babyface in the NASCAR Cup Series right now as virtually everyone has a degree of empathy over what has happened on-track over the past two weeks.
First, he lost to Kyle Larson in the closest finish in division history, .001 at Kansas Speedway. Then came Sunday at Darlington where an errant slider from Tyler Reddick effectively eliminated both of them on the way to sending Brad Keselowski to his first win in three years.
Keselowski, who owns the car Buescher drives at RFK Racing, doesn’t want his driver to change anything at all even in the face of two disappointing setbacks.
“You know, Chris has his style, and it’s worked really, really well for him. I don’t think Chris needs to change a darn thing about what he does,” Keselowski said during his post-race press conference. “It might not have worked out today, but there’s other days it works for him. It makes him what he is. It makes him special, it makes him good. I hate that he didn’t get the result out of it. There was some damage on the car, and that was holding him back a little bit, and so he wasn’t able to drive away, like you would assume a leader would do in a situation like that. But I thought he did a great job of putting himself in position, and to not get a result, I’m sure, it’s hard to stomach, and it should be hard to stomach. That’s what you want out of your driver. You want him to be upset when he doesn’t win.
“So yeah, I would say, Chris isn’t sitting in front of me now, but I would tell him, just keep being Chris. Keep doing what you do.”
In fact, Keselowski also believes Buescher is one of the most underrated drivers in the sport, despite winning three races last season and four over the past two years. Keselowski signed him to a contract extension last summer and he was surprised there was not any competition in doing so.
“He’s been able to make things happen,” Keselowski said. “He’s in a good spot personally and professionally. Good age, good experience level. He’s surrounded by some really good people. He’s significantly underrated. I don’t know why nobody else tried to steal him from us. When we re-signed him last year, I thought for sure somebody else was going to make a run at him, and to my knowledge they never did. I don’t know why nobody else sees in him what I see in him, which is a guy that’s a winner that you put in the right situation can be a multiple time not just race winner but champion with the right equipment.
“He doesn’t get that credit and respect. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because he’s so humble. But I’ve been happy to see him be successful. I’ve never really spent a lot of time looking in the mirror comparing our success.”
Reddick was extremely contrite immediately after the race on Sunday.
“I completely understand why he is that mad,” Reddick said. “He did nothing wrong. Just trying to win the race, and to take myself out – that’s one thing – I can live with that, but just disappointed it played out the way that it did, and I took him out of the race as well. That was not the goal there. If I was going to go for it, I was hoping I was going to clear him. If I hit the wall, pop a tire – I take myself out, I can live with that – it’s tough to walk away knowing I used someone up, and took away their chance of winning the race, that has raced me really cleanly since he came in the Cup Series.”
Speaking on his Actions Detrimental podcast, Denny Hamlin said that it was understandable how animated Buescher got after the race given the past two races.
“Had Buescher finished second, he probably doesn’t have the reaction that he had, but it’s understandable,” Hamlin said. “He’s had a couple weeks now where he’s been thinking he’s going to have a shot to win and it didn’t work out. And instead, it puts him back in that bubble position again. There’s obviously a lot of emotion because of the result.
“… What a win does is he doesn’t have to sweat the points anymore. … They didn’t have a great start to the season. They had a few DNFs and yes, over the last few weeks he’s been running up front. But we zoom in too many times. And I think what he’s saying there is you’re locked into the playoffs and I’m not. I think that’s what he was trying to say is that this win meant more to him and his team than the extra win for you [Reddick] and your team.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.