FORT WORTH, Texas — Home cooking is always a positive for any driver in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, but it couldn’t come at a better time for Chris Buescher.
The Prosper, Texas native is riding the momentum of an 11th-place finish at Martinsville Speedway in last Sunday’s STP 500, a race in which he ran among the top 10 at times and had similar speed to his JTG-Daugherty Racing teammate A.J. Allmendinger, who came home sixth.
That makes coming back to his home state for this weekend’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway an added bonus, and Buescher hopes that the boost of family and friends who will be supporting him leads to another strong showing on Sunday.
He shared some of the emotions that he’s feeling during his media availability on Friday, paying a nod to his short track beginnings as well in the Bandolero and Legends car ranks.
“It’s always nice to come back home where it all started,” Buescher smiled. “Actually as we were riding in here, the Legends cars were practicing on the fifth mile behind Big Hoss, which brings back memories really quickly there. I’ve probably run thousands and thousands of laps on that little track … as well as the quarter-mile on the frontstretch here. It’s always been a place that I grew up around. And I grew up around a lot of people that are at the track. We’re just at a different stage now.”
“I’ve got a lot of friends and family that will come out to this race and camp out and hang out. For us, it’s a way to get back and see them. For my family, they’re a lot farther away now than they used to be out in Prosper, but it’s still a good opportunity to go see Dad and some of his friends that are just a couple of miles up the road here last night, and then my mom is coming in this morning, so we’ll be able to see her for dinner this evening. It is nice because we don’t have very much time to go visit family during our year.”
Buescher added that sometimes, the onslaught of well-wishers can be a little much, but that he wouldn’t trade the positive motivation it brings.
“Sometimes it’s hard, with all the different schedules coming in at different times and all that, but it’s not bad,” he said. “We’ve been here in the past where we’ve had very busy weekends. And because it is a home track for me, it seems like we do a lot more media obligations as well … versus just all the other stuff with family. It’s a lot but it’s awesome to be able to do it. It’s awesome to have enough people close enough to the race track that I do get to see them once or twice a year.”
“Yeah, it’s a little busy but it is nice to have something to do when we’re in town. It’s not just hanging out at the race track and being stuck there not knowing where to go or who to see. I have plenty of options here. So, it’s always enjoyable coming home.”
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