After another top qualifying effort for the EnjoyIllinois.com 225, James Buescher began the night in the third-position and brought home a strong 12th-place finish for his Wolf Pack Rentals Chevrolet team.
After two successful practice sessions, Buescher made his two-lap qualifying effort and secured another third-place starting position in his Wolf Pack Rentals Chevrolet, just behind Todd Bodine and Austin Dillon.
Only four laps into the race, Buescher had dropped two positions and reported that his truck was "crazy tight up to the center of one and two." By lap 11, his Wolf Pack Rentals Chevrolet was "still tight" and Buescher found himself having to "lift a lot" in turns one and two. Seven laps later, he reported that, on a scale of one to 10, the truck was a "six" on tight.
Relieved to see the caution flag displayed on lap 28, Buescher brought his truck down pit road to the attention of his Wolf Pack Rentals crew for four tires, an air pressure adjustment, a half rubber in the left rear and a tank full of Sunoco race fuel. The fast stop made by his pit crew allowed him to gain two positions and re-start the race in sixth-place.
Unfortunately, the truck did not seem to immediately respond to the changes made by Buescher's crew as he reported on lap 40 that the right front of his truck has "no response" and the center and exit were "tight and shoving the nose." By lap 60, the truck was starting to come to him as he let crew chief Michael Shelton know it was "getting better the longer we go."
The third caution flag of the night was displayed on lap 78 with Buescher running in the fourth position. He came down pit road for four tires, fuel and an air pressure adjustment and, again, gained a position on pit road to re-start the race in third.
By lap 101, Buescher felt that he was "sliding the nose off of two," and needed to "free up center off." On lap 108, he felt that he was getting a "vibration," but the young driver persevered but was the cause of the next caution on lap 125 when he was spun by a fellow competitor. With minimal damage and fast work by his pit crew, Buescher was able to stay on the lead lap of the race and, for the remaining 29 laps of the race, he was able to battle his way back to a 12th-place finish.
Kyle Busch was the race winner at Chicagoland. Todd Bodine, Ron Hornaday, Johnny Sauter and Justin Lofton rounded out the top-five.
FAST FACTS:
The Turner Motorsports team will take the next week to prepare for the Built Ford Tough 225 at Kentucky Speedway on Friday, September 3rd. The race can be seen live on SPEED, or heard on MRN Radio beginning at 7:30 pm Eastern time.
JAMES BUESCHER: "We were really battling the handling on the Wolf Pack Rentals Chevrolet tonight, but fortunately we were able to keep it up in the top-10 most of the night and the guys on pit road did a great job of giving me really fast pit stops and helping me gain positions there. I think we definitely would have had a stronger finish if we had been able to stay out of trouble at the end there, but that's just part of racing. I think our finish here gives us something to build on as we go to Kentucky next week."
