Chris Buescher admits moment of concern when Shane van Gisbergen approached him in victory lane
In the final overtime of the “Go Bowling at the Glen” race on Sunday, Chris Buescher stole a win from Shane van Gisbergen after the latter made a bit of an error down the stretch.
Still, there was some contact from Buescher to make the winning pass by van Gisbergen.
For a moment after he had claimed the win, Buescher admitted he had some nerves when he saw van Gisbergen coming toward him on victory lane. Van Gisbergen stands at 6 foot 2, one of the tallest drivers on the NASCAR circuit. He’s a physically imposing guy.
“Yeah, I didn’t feel like there was anything that was dirty about it,” Chris Buescher told FOX Sports’ Bob Pockrass after the race. “I didn’t expect him coming over to be mad about anything. On that note, I think that’s the one guy out here that’s bigger than me. So if there’s that moment where I feel like he is mad coming over I better take note, right?”
Buescher had a good laugh, happy to be past the moment without incident.
And it makes sense that there was no bad blood after the race. Van Gisbergen did, in fact, make a pretty big error in the final overtime that allowed Buescher to clear him, dinging a wall slightly and losing enough speed to let the trailing driver catch him.
That’s why Buescher felt relatively confident he wasn’t about to get into a scrap with van Gisbergen, but rather simply receive some congratulations.
“I figured so. I didn’t feel like anything was dirty there at the end,” Chris Buescher said. “Like we talked about, there was a little pushing and shoving on both sides. Ultimately it was, he had a big error there into the bus stop and we just took advantage of it and really had to be aggressive to get to the hole.”
That’s not to say the question from Pockrass didn’t give Buescher a little pause. He seemed to consider everything, then noted he probably gives other drivers that same scare from time to time.
“It just, on the flip side, I’m sure some others don’t like seeing me,” Chris Buescher said with a big smile. “So yeah, I appreciated him coming over and saying good race, because I did feel like it was a really good race. We got after each other hard butt ultimately there was nothing crazy in those last couple laps, just good hard racing.”