Chris Buescher entered the regular season finale with a 21-point lead over Bubba Wallace for the sixteenth and final playoff spot. However, the pressure quickly mounted because the laps ticked by. Wallace scored 11 stage points while Buescher collected only one, cutting the gap between them nearly in half.
When Front Row Motorsports teammate Todd Gilliland put Buescher on the surface wall with 46 laps to go, he spun his Ford teammate as his playoff hopes began to fade. But the caution gave him a possibility to pit for 4 latest tires, while Wallace didn’t. Momentum suddenly swung back toward Buescher as he once more passed Wallace within the points. Then a multi-car pileup cost Wallace’s No. 23 Toyota a likelihood to win, nevertheless it was no moment of relief for Buescher.
The problem was Chase Briscoe, who led the race and ultimately held on, winning his solution to the playoffs, eliminating Buescher from the playoffs despite a sixth-place finish. It was all for nothing. He was eliminated by a paltry six points.
“It’s frustration and disbelief all at once,” Buescher said after the race. The RFK Racing driver got here ridiculously near Victory Lane this yr, losing the closest photo finish in NASCAR Cup history at Kansas to Kyle Larson by .001 seconds. At the identical track earlier this yr, he slashed a tire after contact with Tyler Reddick while leading late within the race. But with surprise winners like Briscoe and Harrison Burton, he suddenly found himself the primary man when the 16-car playoff grid was set.
“We felt like we did, for the most part, what we needed to do today,” he continued. “We got back in contention at the end and got a decent finish. We just fell short again, and we’re looking at it from the outside. It’s just the system that we all play in. We had such a great year. Everyone at RFK worked so hard. We were so fast. We passed so many cars that could be fighting for the championship, but that’s the system and we didn’t work well with it.”
Five drivers ranked lower within the standings than Buescher have passed him this yr with race wins, illustrating the importance of the win-and-you’re-in system that has come to define modern NASCAR racing.
“I’ll definitely look back on different times throughout the year and think about how I can do better next time,” Buescher lamented.
