Story By: BRANDON LEE / RFK RACING – LEBANON, TN – Sunday’s race at Nashville Superspeedway was, in a word, chaos. Inclement weather and a flurry of cautions – 15 in total – dominated the headlines as Chris Buescher ended his day on a high note with a fifth-place finish. Brad Keselowski finished fifth in each of the first two stages and was running inside the top five much of the day, but was spun with under 100 to go to ultimately finish 25th.
The closing laps alone saw five NASCAR Overtime attempts, a new record, as the race in total was extended to 331 laps from the original distance of 300. Lightning – and later rain – put the race on halt for nearly 90 minutes just under halfway through the scheduled distance.
For Buescher, it’s his third top five in the last four races, and fifth overall on the season.
6 Recap
Keselowski started fifth following his best-career qualifying effort at the Tennessee track. Despite the numerous cautions late, the opening laps ran caution-free as the conclusion of stage one signified the first yellow flag of the afternoon.
The No. 6 Consumer Cellular Ford pitted from third at lap 39 under green then later went on to finish fifth in the opening stage of 90 laps. A 2-tire call under yellow at lap 117 put Keselowski P2 on the restart with teammate Buescher in third. Then, less than 20 laps later, thunderstorms moved into the Lebanon area as lightning put a delay on the race.
Following the delay of more than an hour, Keselowski restarted fourth and went on to finish fifth in the stage. He began stage three in fourth, and maintained a top-6 position for the next 30 laps. Under yellow at lap 218, Keselowski would pit for four tires which put him 18th on the ensuing restart. Then, at lap 244, Keselowski went to pass the No. 3 on the outside, and the two made contact into turn 1, sending the No. 6 into the outside wall.
After lengthy repairs – including replacing the steering wheel – Keselowski restarted three laps down at lap 247. He ran 34th at the time, but used the final five cautions to gain track position and ultimately advance nine spots to 25th.
17 Recap
Much like his teammate, Buescher spent most of the early race inside the top-10, and later top five. After starting ninth – also his best effort at the track – Buescher finished the opening stage in eighth.
The same strategy call (as the 6) just 20 laps into the second stage put Buescher inside the top three for a handful of laps, before he was later scored seventh at the time of the red flag. He went on to finish ninth in stage two after the restart of the remaining 44 laps in the segment.
A pit road issue in the stage break set the No. 17 BuildSubmarines.com Ford back in terms of track position as he restarted 17th at lap 193. That track position later flipped at lap 218 when Buescher pitted for fuel only, putting him 13th on the ensuing restart. This time, Buescher hustled six positions in just a two-lap span to seventh.
He was ninth coming to the white flag before the flurry of five cautions flew, extending the race by a full 31 laps. Crew chief Scott Graves called the No. 17 to pit road for right-side tires at lap 301, putting him 20th on the next restart. From there, attrition was the name of the game as multiple cars wrecked out or ran out of fuel. Buescher ultimately restarted seventh for the final time and powered past two cars for the P5 finish.
“I’m proud of everybody on this BuildSubmarines.com Mustang and working hard to get back after it,” Buescher said. “It was definitely an up and down day and ended up with a decent finish, but we just had a strategy to have the fuel we needed there and it was caution after caution, so I’m definitely frustrated by all of that.
“We had the ability to run in the top-10 all night and got stage points and got a decent finish out of it. I’m still just frustrated. It was just chaos there at the end. I have to go back and watch what happened with everything obviously, but we just didn’t get a chance to race very much. We were in a good spot there. We had good speed after the sun went down and had tires, so just really wanted some laps.”
Up Next
NASCAR heads to the streets of Chicago next week for just the second time. Race coverage next Sunday is set for 4:30 p.m. ET on NBC, with radio coverage on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Channel 90).