RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher is heating up at just the right time.
Buescher held off Martin Truex Jr. for his second straight win Monday afternoon, claiming the postponed FireKeepers Casino 400 NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Mich.
The native of Prosper, Texas, who earned a playoff spot with a win at Richmond Raceway last Sunday, denied a pass by Truex with 13 laps to go and won by 0.152 seconds in a race that featured nine cautions and 16 leaders.
The pair ran up on the lapped car of Michael McDowell on Lap 187, but Buescher’s No. 17 Ford prevailed as Truex nearly wrecked his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
Buescher, 30, said he and his team owned by Jack Roush and Brad Keselowski expect to win when they arrive at the track these days.
“That was our plan. That’s what we look to do every weekend,” said Buescher, who became the first driver to record back-to-back wins in the 17 car since Matt Kenseth did it in the first two races of 2009. “We made some really good changes and got our Mustang in a good place to win here for Ford and Jack and Brad.
“That’s massive progress right there. To (win at) two vastly different race tracks. … This is a heck of a time to get turned on and get rolling.”
Winless at Michigan, Truex said he needed a longer run to pass Buescher.
“We needed to wear the tires some more,” said Truex, who now has four runner-up finishes at Michigan. “It’s just really hard to pass the leader on equal tires.”
It was Buescher’s second straight victory after scoring only two in his first 278 career starts, and the first by a Roush-owned car at MIS since Greg Biffle won there on June 16, 2013.
The victory marked Ford’s ninth straight win at the superspeedway.
Following the duo were Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski and Kyle Larson to round out the top five.
On Monday, Truex won Stage 2 with a last-lap pass of Daniel Suarez and erased Buescher’s six-second lead in the final 39 circuits.
However, the 2017 Cup champion could not make the pass of Buescher for potentially his fourth win of 2023 and third on a Monday.
In the 23rd race of the regular season’s scheduled 26, Christopher Bell won the pole with a lap of 193.382 mph.
Kyle Busch (37th-place finish), Chase Elliott (36th) and William Byron (35th) all crashed out in the 74 laps run before rain stopped the 400-miler in Michigan’s Irish Hills and moved the restart to Monday.
Replacing indefinitely suspended Legacy Motor Club driver Noah Gragson, Xfinity Series regular Josh Berry crashed on Lap 51 and finished 34th in the No. 42 Chevrolet.
Kevin Harvick entered the race having won five of the past seven MIS events and was the defending race winner. The six-time track victor finished eighth in his final start at the two-mile superspeedway.
–Field Level Media
