Chris Buescher Steals a Victory in Soggy Pocono Event

Early into the Pennsylvania 400, Chris Buescher was involved in an incident, forcing him to make an unscheduled pit stop. The No. 34 car went a Lap down, but on Lap 107, his race changed. 

Buescher would receive the free pass when Chase Elliott got into Joey Logano through the Tunnel Turn. When other drivers didn’t pit, the Front Row Motorsports team did and went the remaining 31 laps on fuel. 

On Lap 132, NASCAR threw the caution for fog as it covered the entire 2.5-mile race track. The next six laps were spent under the caution flag before the red flag was thrown, waiting over an hour and a half before calling the race due to fog, handing Buescher his first career victory. 

“We’re sitting there on pit road, kind of just waiting for everything to happen the way that it was going to,” Buescher said of waiting over an hour for the victory. “We’ve had some awful luck this year and a lot of things not go our way and I tried not to get my hopes up because I knew just as soon as I did, the fog would have rolled back out and we would have been restarting again.” 

Picking up the victory, Buescher sits 31st in the standings, six points behind David Ragan. In order to make the Chase, the No. 34 team will need to pick up those points. It is the second career victory for Front Row Motorsports. 

After struggling early on in the race, Brad Keselowski finished second. The No. 2 car was the first car on the track that had pitted and if the race would have remained green would have caught Buescher in the next handful of laps. 

“Definitely an odd weekend,” Keselowski said of his race. “We were really competitive this weekend. I’m really proud that we were running up front. I thought that there were two or three cars that were really strong and we were one of them.” 

Finding a four leaf clover during the pre-race, Regan Smith lucked into a third-place finish, also staying out on fuel. The finish ties the best-career finish by Tommy Baldwin Racing at Talladega in the fall of 2011.

“This is a big deal for this team,” Smith said of his finish. “Tommy has really worked hard over the years at this and we’ve got to take opportunities when they present themselves and today was a day that opportunity presented. I’m proud of them for taking the chance doing the fuel-mileage deal and do what we did.” 

Arguably having the fastest car in Pocono, Kevin Harvick came home fourth, leading seven laps. His Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Tony Stewart rounded out the top five. 

Leading 37 laps, Kyle Larson spent the most time out front on Monday. This was yet again a win that got away from the third year driver as he finished sixth on the afternoon. 

A trio of Joe Gibbs Racing drivers lined up positions seven through nine with Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch. June winner, Kurt Busch rounded out the top 10. xdsxsx

For much of the day it looked like Austin Dillon had the car to beat as on two separate occasions the No. 3 car raced its way to the lead, leading three laps. During the last pit stop, a lug nut got hung on the right rear tire, slowing the pit stop. 

Kasey Kahne was the highest finishing driver from the Hendrick Motorsports stable in 15th. This marks the fourth time in the last six events that a Hendrick team has failed to post a top-10 finish. 

In his return to Pocono, Jeff Gordon will go home with a 27th-place effort after a seat belt came loose under the green flag.

Pre-race favorite, Martin Truex, Jr. spent the first 16 laps out front prior to the competition caution. The pole-sitter cut a tire on the lap following the resuming restart. Over the rest of the race, the No. 78 car cut two more tires, finishing 38th. 

Dustin Albino