RFK Racing currently has no drivers locked into the playoffs, but Chris Buescher is their only driver in the top 16 right now. He holds the final spot, only 23 points clear of his closest competition -- teammate Ryan Preece.
Buescher is also facing a one-year winless streak, but this weekend, he returns to the site of his most recent victory at the Cup level.
“We needed a win last year for our sanity," said Buescher in a media availability at Watkins Glen. "For us, the situation [last year] was very much the same internally. But the repercussions are different this year. There are some differences. We know where we are at in the fight for a playoff spot. A win is the way to guarantee your way in but this year we have to be aware of our bubble. As much as I hate to admit that, it is where we have found ourselves.
“For us, this weekend, we want to get on track and have really, really solid speed and say ‘let’s focus’. I think where you maybe take a step back and start thinking about the point side more specifically than the race win is through any adversity on the day. When your chance of winning has diminished, then maybe there is a Plan B that’s probably more thought through than maybe it would have been several months ago for us.”
Battling a teammate
But if Buescher can't reach Victory Lane over the next three weeks, then he has to fight his way into the playoff field on points. Preece sliced nearly 20 points out of the deficit at Iowa Speedway, making it a true fight between the RFK Racing teammates.
“I don’t know that it is going to be any different than racing anybody else," said Buescher when asked about racing his teammate Preece. "Just in the sense that we are all trying to figure out how to win races, how to have the best day possible. We have a fantastic environment at RFK that allows us to share across all of the teams all of the time. I think it is very important in moments like this that we don’t lose that. That has been a focus in the shop and I fully believe that the transparency will be there between all of our teams so that we will all be able to have the best weekend possible.
”At the end of the day, it is going to come down to the execution of it. If we are able to win a race and pull it off it is just going to be normal racing. Go to the race track, do everything we know to do. Control what we can and, at the end of it, if one of us decides to run for a bunch of stage points and the other one doesn’t and is able to get a win, that flips it just as easily as both of us going for stage points.
"There are a lot of different scenarios and a lot of racing left. In some ways, it is nice to be racing against your teammate because you know the level of respect. You know what to plan for when you race around each other. We have certainly had that all year. On the flip side, sometimes it is harder. It is a little more difficult to put a bumper on a teammate and shove him out of the way if the situation calls for it.
“But it will be good hard racing. That is the agreement within the shop. We are not letting each other have anything. We are going to race. We are all competitors. We are all teammates but we are competitors still. But I think you have to race your own shop with just a little added level of respect.”
The constant threat of new winners
The other thing Buescher has to be worried about is a new winner appearing from below the cut-line. It nearly happened at Iowa, and it was almost his own boss. Brad Keselowski, co-owner at RFK Racing, came close to winning his way into the playoffs. At The Glen, three drivers starting inside the top ten are in a must-win situation.
And to make things even more uncomfortable, Daytona International Speedway is the regular season finale -- a track where anyone could win. Last year,Harrison Burton came from outside the top 30 in points to earn a shock win in that race.
"Certainly not ideal in our situation," admitted Buescher. "When you are close to that cut line - and that is mostly on us for not having a win before now. If we had been able to win a couple of races throughout the year to this point then you would say ‘I am sure it is exciting and it creates a little bit of extra drama there [at Daytona] but where we are at it just creates a last second opportunity for a very competitive car that is way up there in points.
“We have seen it, it could be a car buried in the 30s in points. That’s the hard part when you talk about championship racing and putting your whole season together.
"When it comes down to that race, and how that can be that kicker that takes a year that you feel you were very consistent and fast and didn’t get the win when you needed to and it kicks you out of the Playoffs. It isn’t my favorite option but I do understand the excitement that it can bring and the drama to it.
“But, it is on us to win before now. I would like to be sitting on the other side of it saying: ‘it will be what it will be because we are locked in’. If we can do that tomorrow or next week, to get to that point then I can put a little more excitement in my voice when I answer that next time.”
