Information By: BRANDON LEE / RFK RACING – CONCORD, NC
Richmond Event Info:
Date: Sunday, March 31
Time: 7 p.m. ET
Series: NASCAR Cup Series (NCS)
Location: Richmond, Virginia
Format: 400 Laps, 300 miles, Stages: 70-160-170
TV: FOX
Radio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90)
Weekend Schedule:
Saturday: 10:30 a.m. ET, Practice (FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)
Saturday: 11:15 a.m. ET, Qualifying (FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)
Sunday: 7 p.m. ET, Race (FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)
Pace Laps:
- Richmond hosts its first of two race dates of the season as the Cup Series embarks on a 300-mile Easter Sunday night race.
- Chris Buescher is the defending winner at Richmond as he visited victory lane at the ¾-mile track last July. That win began a stretch of three victories in a five week span for the No. 17 team, who later won Michigan (the next week), and Daytona the next month.
- Jack Roush has 16 wins all-time at Richmond, including now six in the Cup Series.
- Take out Buescher’s spring finish in 2023, and he and Brad Keselowski have finished top-15 in every Richmond race since the beginning of the 2022 season.
6 Team Info:
Crew Chief: Matt McCall
Partner: BuildSubmarines.com
17 Team Info:
Crew Chief: Scott Graves
Partner: NEXLETOL (bempedoic acid and ezetimibe)
Keselowski at Richmond
Starts: 28
Wins: 2 (2014, 2020)
Top-10s: 14
Poles: 2 (2014, 2019)
- Keselowski, a two-time winner at Richmond, makes his 29th Cup start at the ¾-mile track on Sunday. He won the lone race at Richmond in 2020 after leading 192 laps.
- More recently, Keselowski led 102 laps and finished sixth in the race last fall where Buescher won. He’s finished inside the top-15 in every Richmond race since the spring of 2015, and in that stretch has led laps in 11 different races. In total he’s led 1280 laps at Richmond in 14 different races, his most of any track on the circuit.
- Keselowski won back in 2014 after starting on the pole, leading 383 of the 400 laps.
- His 12.31 average finish holds as one of his best among all tracks with 14 top-10s overall and six finishes inside the top five.
- He also has two poles – 2014 and 2019 – for an average starting position of 11th, also one of his best marks. Last season he qualified 24th (spring) and 13th (fall).
- Keselowski made 17 Xfinity Series starts from 2006-17 earning four victories and 10 top-10s. He won his last NXS start there in 2017 and also went to victory lane in 2010 once and 2013 twice.
Buescher at Richmond
Starts: 15
Wins: 1 (2023)
Top-10s: 2
Poles: —
- Buescher is the defending winner at Richmond, having led 88 laps en route to his first of three victories last season, and the first of three in a stretch of five weeks.
- He makes his 300th Cup Series start this weekend at Richmond, now in his ninth full season in the series. He first made a Cup start back in 2015 at age 22.
- Despite a 22.5 average finish at the track, Buescher has two top-3 finishes in the last three Richmond races. He finished third in the 2022 fall event, and qualified seventh last spring before finishing 30th due to late troubles.
- Buescher has a 20.4 average qualifying effort with a best effort of seventh (twice) last spring and in 2019.
- Buescher made five NXS starts for Jack Roush from 2011-15, earning three top-10s with a best finish of seventh (2014).
RFK Historically at Richmond
Cup Wins: 6 (Mark Martin, 1990; Jeff Burton, 1998; Matt Kenseth, 2002; Kurt Busch, 2005; Carl Edwards, 2013; Chris Buescher, 2023)
- History in the Commonwealth of Virginia: Overall, RFK has 366 starts at Richmond Raceway, earning a total of 16 wins, 91 top-five and 154 top-10 finishes. RFK Fords have sat on the pole 14 times and led 5,151 laps across NASCAR’s three major touring series.
- To Xfinity and Beyond: RFK has earned nine victories, 43 top-five finishes, 66 top-10 finishes and an average finish of 11.8 at Richmond in the Xfinity Series. All in all, three different drivers are responsible for the nine victories at the Virginia short track (Edwards, Mark Martin and Jeff Burton).
- Nine and Counting: RFK’s nine victories at Richmond rank fourth among all tracks the organization has competed on in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, trailing Darlington Raceway (15), Charlotte Motor Speedway (12) and North Carolina Speedway – formerly known as Rockingham – (11).
- Tale of the Tape: RFK has started 225 NCS races at Richmond with 77 top-10 and 39 top-five finishes along with seven poles. Former drivers Mark Martin (1990), Jeff Burton (1998), Matt Kenseth (2002), Kurt Busch (2005), and Carl Edwards (2013) are responsible for RFK’s five Cup wins, with Buescher adding his name to that list in 2023, and a Jack Roush Cup Series Ford has led 2,633 laps at the .75-mile track.
RFK Richmond Wins
1990-1 Martin Cup
1993-1 Martin NXS
1993-2 Martin NXS
1997-1 Martin NXS
1998-1 Burton NXS
1998-2 Burton Cup
1999-1 Martin NXS
1999 Biffle Truck
2000-2 Burton NXS
2002-2 Kenseth Cup
2005-1 Edwards NXS
2005-2 Busch Cup
2008-2 Edwards NXS
2009-2 Edwards NXS
2013-2 Edwards Cup
2023-2 Buescher Cup
Last Time Out & Where They Stand
COTA: Buescher drove through the field to an eighth-place finish at the 3+-mile road course for his third-straight top-10 overall, and third consecutive on a road course dating back to 2023. Keselowski earned stage points with a P6 stage two finish, before finishing 34th.
Points Standings (17: 12th, 6: 16th): Buescher advanced two positions to P12 while Keselowski dropped three spots to 16th in the standings through six races.