Dale Earnhardt Jr. reacts to wild Chris Buescher, Shane van Gisbergen battle at Watkins Glen
Chris Buescher won the NASCAR Cup Series race at Watkins Glen, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. loved what he saw from him. On X, the NASCAR legend reacted to Buescher getting past Shane van Gisbergen during the final lap of the race.
“Incredible finish. Unreal performance and determination from [Chris Buescher],” Earnhardt wrote in the post.
This was Buescher’s first victory of the season and the sixth of his Cup Series career. The win was big since Buescher missed out on being one of the 16 drivers to qualify for the playoffs.
In May, Buescher spoke to Earnhardt about being disappointed with his second-place finish at Kansas. “This one’s going to hurt for a really, really long time,” Buescher said on Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s Dirty Mo Media.
“I told everybody I thought I was going to throw up on the way to the airport,” Chris Buescher added. “I guess when I look back at it if we’d gone across the line and from the get-go thought we finished second you would have been upset about it, you’d have been hurt about it, but it would have been OK.
Chris Buescher talks to Dale Earnhardt Jr. about close call in Kansas
“But to be in that hour or time or really it was that first minute that everything was very confusing, we’re trying to figure out how in the world we’re getting this answer off of it, transponders and timing and scoring everything are in our favor. Obviously the painted line, which doesn’t really matter, but it’s comical right now to talk about it.”
The Kansas race is one of four races during the regular season when Buescher finished either second or third. Had he won one of the those races, he would be in the playoffs, and advance in the round of 12 since he won on Sunday.
“Some of our guys said, ‘Just don’t let it hurt any more than six days,’” Buescher said. “Let’s just go to Darlington, win there and we can put it behind us. So we’ll try to figure out how to make that one work.
“But this one hurts. We finished second at Phoenix to Christopher Bell and it wasn’t even close. I mean he just walked away from the field. At that race, second felt good because we knew we needed a lot of work to win. This one to be that close and not be able to get it, it’s gonna stick with us for a long time.”