Chris Buescher heads to Richmond Raceway a mere 17 points above the playoff cutline. He doesn't have a secure spot in the playoffs yet, but he is not panicking or making rash decisions.
The driver of the No. 17 RFK Racing Ford is going to stick with what works as he returns to the track where he won last season's summer race.
"I don't want to change the way we approach our races," Buescher told media members on Wednesday. "I've just seen it too many times in our sport where you try and get put back on your heels and change up what you're doing and it can end up costing you.
"We've got to race our races, put our best foot forward and that should be enough to get us where we need to go."
CHRIS BUESCHER 🏆
CHRIS BUESCHER 🏆
CHRIS BUESCHER 🏆
CHRIS BUESCHER 🏆TBT to his sweet Richmond W for all 30,000 people of Prosper, TX. pic.twitter.com/gwVt79t2HY
— RFK Racing (@RFKracing) August 8, 2024
It's not that Buescher and RFK Racing have been off this season. They have come close to victory lane, including at Kansas Speedway when Buescher finished second to Kyle Larson in NASCAR's closest finish. He crossed the line side-by-side with Larson but lost by 0.001 seconds.
The Texas native has four other top-five finishes this season. He finished second behind Christopher Bell at Phoenix, third at Sonoma, fifth at Nashville, and fifth at New Hampshire.
"We've been very good at a lot of different styles of racetracks," Buescher said. "We've been very close to locking ourselves in, but we've been very good."
The four races remaining before the playoffs take place at tracks where Buescher has achieved success. Next up is Richmond, where he won last season. After that is Michigan and Daytona, two tracks where he also won last season.
The regular-season finale takes place at Darlington Raceway, a track where Buescher has not delivered consistent finishes in the Cup Series. He has 14 starts with one top-five finish and four top-10s. He finished 10th and third in last season's races at The Lady in Black, but he finished 30th in this season's spring race.
Darlington is the final opportunity to score a win and lock up a playoff spot, but Buescher hopes he can take care of business well before the trip to South Carolina.
He would also prefer to have a win before heading to Daytona, the remaining wild card in the regular season, and a track where essentially any driver can win and shake up the playoff field.
"If we go into Darlington without our win yet, obviously we were very close last time and with Brad (Keselowski) being able to pull off that win that obviously puts us in a good spot and a good mindset going into that one," Buescher said.
"So I don't think we would put ourselves on that long list of teams that are gonna be looking at (Daytona) as a last resort."