MONSTER ENERGY NASCAR CUP SERIES
O’REILLY AUTO PARTS 500
TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
APRIL 7, 2017
CHRIS BUESCHER, NO. 37 SCOTT PRODUCTS CHEVROLET SS met with media and discussed driving the newly-paved Texas Motor Speedway in the pace car and shooting video, coming to his hometown track, and more. Full Transcript:
ALL THE DRIVERS IN THIS GARAGE AREA HAVE PRAISED YOUR CINEMATOGRAPHY SKILLS. HOW MUCH GRIEF HAVE THEY GIVEN YOU FOR GETTING THOSE LAPS ON THE TRACK AND GIVING THEM AN INSIGHT OF THIS NEW SURFACE?
“I’m not sure who posted it or how it got there, but I wish I had thought of that. I was trying to help our team, not everybody. But, it kind of worked out that way. We were here right after the Vegas race before they had lines on the track and just taking a look. I think the speedway did a pretty good job of paving it. It was extremely smooth. All the transitions seem to be pretty good and it was very wide. Trying to decide where to run in the pace car with no lines and not knowing where Turns 1 and 2 will go once we get into practice here. It was definitely interesting. It’s going to be a good time. I’ll be a little bit curious to see who is going to be the brave soul that goes on track first today. It won’t be me. I’ll kind of sit back and watch and see how it goes.”
HAVE A LOT OF DRIVERS COME UP AND TALKED TO YOU ABOUT WHAT YOU SAW? OR, DID THEY JUST RELY ON THE VIDEO?
“A handful. It’s kind of just come from driver intros. Everybody keeps asking me about the race track and nobody has really said what they’ve seen. And finally, I think, last week Matt DiBenedetto was like yeah, I saw your video on YouTube. What else did you see? And I was like how did you find that? But I guess I’ve been getting questions pretty regularly. It’s hard to say. What are you really going to learn in a pace car at 60 mph that you’re going to be able to apply? Just from seeing it, I think the video really tells most of what we can really tell right now until we actually get up to speed on the track.”
DOES COMING BACK TO TEXAS EVER GET OLD FOR YOU? WHAT SORT OF MEMORIES DO YOU HAVE AS A YOUNG KID COMING HERE AND OBVIOUSLY NOW, RACING HERE ONCE AGAIN?
“Oh, it never gets old. It’s always nice to come back home were it started. Actually as we were riding in here, the Legends cars were practicing on the fifth mile behind Big Hoss, which brings back memories really quickly there. I’ve probably run thousands and thousands of laps on that little track as well as the quarter-mile on the frontstretch here. It’s always been a place that I grew up around. And I grew up around a lot of people that are at the track. We’re just at a different stage now. For me, it’s always nice to come back home. I’ve got a lot of friends and family that will come out to this race and camp out and hang out. For us, it’s a way to get back and see them. For my family, they’re a lot farther away now than they used to be out in Prosper, but it’s still a good opportunity to go see Dad and some of his friends that are just a couple of miles up the road here last night, and then my mom is coming in this morning, so we’ll be able to see her for dinner this evening. It is nice because we don’t have very much time to go visit family during our year.”
HOW IMPORTANT WAS YOUR 11TH PLACE FINISH AT MARTINSVILLE TO YOU AND THE TEAM?
“For me, that was definitely the best we’ve run at Martinsville. And I’m still pretty bummed that we didn’t get to qualify. I feel like we could have had a better day yet. But, for us to start where we did, and be able to work our way up through it; Trent (Owens, crew chief) made some really good calls. Our car was really good through the second half of the race; and really before that, our first run wasn’t quite where we needed it but we were able to work on it and get it rolling. For us, it was huge for our point situation. It was huge to be able to get a good run and it was huge for JTD Daugherty and also for (teammate) AJ (Allmindinger) to go up there and run a sixth, I believe. So, that was huge for him as well to be able to make up all the spots that he did. For me, it’s a place where AJ has run really well in the past and I was able to lean on him to try and figure that place out a little more and look at a lot of data as we were at the race track. It just enabled us to go out there and be a little bit more competitive than we have in the past and that was definitely big. We proved that we have good mechanical grip in out race cars and we have speed in them. We’ve just got to fine-tune as we go to some of these larger tracks.”
YOU JUST TALKED ABOUT FAMILY AND FRIENDS. AT ANY POINT, IS THAT EVER TOO MUCH? OR, HAVE YOU EVER BEEN OVERWHELMED BY THE FACT THAT YOU’RE TRYING TO MAKE EVERY FRIEND AND FAMILY MEMBER HAPPY ON A RACE WEEKEND?
“Sometimes. It is hard, with all the different schedules coming in at different times and all that. But, it’s not bad. We’ve been here in the past where we’ve had very busy weekends. And because it is a home track for me, it seems like we do a lot more media obligations as well versus just all the other stuff with family. Yeah, it’s a lot but it’s awesome to be able to do it. It’s awesome to have enough people close enough to the race track that I do get to see them once or twice a year. Yeah, it’s a little busy but it is nice to have something to do when we’re in town. It’s not just hanging out at the race track and being stuck there not knowing where to go or who to see. I have plenty of options here. So, it’s always enjoyable coming home.”
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Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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