BROOKLYN, Mich. – Chris Buescher returned to Michigan International Speedway as the defending winner, and he believed the No. 17 Ford would have that same capability one year later.
His hypothesis was accurate.
With qualifying getting canceled on Saturday, Buescher lined up 18th for the FireKeepers Casino 400 on Sunday. He made a steady progression through the field early, and when Denny Hamlin spun with the stage winding down, Scott Graves, crew chief of the No. 17 car, left Buescher on the track to hopefully collect much-needed stage points.
Buescher finished the opening stage in fifth, tallying six stage points. However, late in the second stage he was collected in a multi-car wreck when Kyle Larson spun from inside of the top 10. That collected the likes of Buescher and Bubba Wallace, both of whom are clawing for points to make the playoffs. Contact from Todd Gilliland sent Buescher around.
“An accident happens and you check up and some cars just don’t,” Buescher said of the incident. “They come to the accident wide open and we end up getting pinballed around. I haven’t seen a replay, so I’m probably talking out of term, but I feel like you are trying to check up so you’re not part of the wreck and you just get run over from behind.”
After the wreck, the No. 17 Ford had damage to all four fenders. The most significant was to the left-front corner, affecting Buescher’s speed down the long straightaways.
While Tyler Reddick, William Byron, Chase Elliott and Kyle Busch traded the lead back and forth, Buescher needed to recover in the points. He declared that he hates point racing, “but once our chance of winning is gone, it’s time to go into that mode.”
Yet during the final stage, Buescher kept picking off spots, rifling through the field. He took advantage of a couple of late-race cautions to jump to sixth when the checkered flag waved.

“We passed a ton of cars in the last couple of laps,” Buescher added. “Ultimately, sixth, you’re happy about that sometimes. We salvaged a sixth, but the potential to be a lot better.”
Gauging off the No. 17 car’s speed earlier in the race, which was stronger than Reddick and Byron who claimed the top two spots, Buescher knew his car could compete for the victory had it not been damaged. Instead, he was fighting to hold on to every position.
“We had a car that I thought had a chance to win this race knowing that we were racing the [Byron] and [Reddick] at times before we had damage,” he said. “Very competitive. We salvaged sixth, but the damage changed our balance a lot, we definitely had a ton of drag into it.”
With Wallace finishing 26th and Ross Chastain spinning in overtime and dropping to 25th, Buescher gained 16 points on the playoff bubble going into a wild card race at Daytona International Speedway. If there happens to be a new winner next week, he currently holds a 15-point buffer to 16th position, currently held by Chastain by one point over Wallace.