Chris Buescher Grows At RFK Racing With Brad Keselowski’s Leadership

Chris Buescher returned to the Nascar Cup Series garage in 2023 determined to be a playoff contender. Fresh off his first win with RFK Racing — the team’s first since 2017 — the 2015 Xfinity Series champion is thriving under the leadership of co-owner Brad Keselowski.

Keselowski purchased a stake in the team heading into the 2022 season. The now owner-driver wanted to turn around a once dominant organization that rapidly decreased in performance over the past decade. To do so, Keselowski wanted to build the revitalized organization around Buescher.

“It’s going to take a lot of work, a lot of attention to detail and it’s really that simple,” Keselowski said in January of 2022.

Buescher is an old-school racer, seen as a face in the garage who’s quiet and straight to the point. He’s blunt in his criticism of himself and of his team’s past performance, a perfect fit for Keselowski’s group, which pays homage to owner Jack Roush’s past as Ford’s leading face in Nascar.

Now, Buescher is on pace to have his best Cup Series season to date. Through the first 13 races, he has two top fives and five top 10s, with an average finish of 15.2. With just under two-thirds of the season remaining, he’s on pace to top his career-bests in each of those categories. Most of all, he’s currently sitting 14th on the playoff grid.

“We’ve had a lot of speed at a lot of different racetracks and styles of racetracks, but we don’t have the results to show for it like we should,” Buescher said. “Some of that is me needing to do a better job behind the wheel. Some of that is cleaning up some of our practices, and some of it is a bit of dumb luck during these races.

“With that stat [being on pace to have his best average finish], I guess that’s awesome that we’re already headed in the right direction because I feel like we’ve missed out on our potential. Nobody has sat still. We’re continuing to hustle.”

The leap near the top of the scoring pylon is long awaited for Buescher. He entered the Cup Series full time in 2016 with Front Row Motorsports — a Roush affiliate at the time — and won a rain-shortened race at Pocono Raceway. Until last year, though, he failed to return to the winner’s circle.

Buescher left the Ford Performance camp for Chevrolet in 2017 with JTG Daugherty Racing in the team’s second car, a rare instance when his contract was actually leased to the rival organization. He spent three seasons there until Roush utilized a clause in his contract to bring him back instead of allowing him to become a free agent.

“I felt that when I started at Roush, I would be there forever,” Buescher said. “Jack really gave me my big break into professional racing.”

Ever since, the path forward has not been an easy one.

“RFK as a whole has come a long way,” Buescher said. “We’re in a position where we have an opportunity to win more races this year. We need to take one more small step up to be in the running every week.”

Throughout Buescher’s journey with RFK Racing, he’s had reliable partners to back his effort. Fastenal
FAST
, which sponsored him when he won the Xfinity Series title, continues to serve as his primary sponsor. This year, he’s also partnered with Nexletol, Castrol, Socios, Pala Casino, Violet Defense and longtime sponsor Fifth Third Bank
FITB
.

Now, Keselowski and Buescher are determined to bring this team back to the top. When Keselowski became the team’s co-owner — what Buescher calls “a poorly kept secret” — changes were immediately implemented.

“Brad and Jack remind me of each other,” Buescher said. “Jack’s a Hall of Famer and is a wedge in our sport. He’s given me the opportunity to do this at a professional opportunity when I was 16 years old and didn’t have a lot to my name then.

“We’ve had a strong start. It was a pretty smooth transition. Everybody has embraced it. There’s more potential in our team now.”

When asked about expectations for the remaining two-thirds of the season, Buescher kept it short and sweet.

“It’s time for us to get back into victory lane,” he said.

This weekend, the Cup Series heads to North Wilkesboro Speedway for the All-Star Race – the first Cup race on the famed short track since 1996. In late 2019, Buescher, along with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and other industry members went to Wilkes County to clean the track so that iRacing could scan it. Evidently, that led to the Racetrack Revival.