Chris Buescher will be moving to a second NASCAR Cup team fielded by JTG Daugherty Racing for 2017. The team will lease a Charter from Roush-Fenway Racing formally used by the No. 16 team. Longtime Roush driver Greg Biffle announced his departure from the team, and the No. 16, last week.
With the announcement, Roush seemed to confirm the shuttering of the No. 16.
JTG Daugherty Racing formally known as ST Motorsports and JTG Racing, is owned by Tad Geschickter and his wife Jodi, along with former NBA player turned TV analyst Brad Daugherty. They currently field the No. 47 Chevy with driver AJ Allmendinger.
Buescher raced in the Cup series for Front Row Motorsports in 2015 and 2016 scoring his first Cup win at Pocono. He competed for Roush in the Xfinity series from 2011-2015.
Roush also announced that in addition to only fielding only two cars in the Cup series in 2017, they have made some personnel changes as well.
In addition to Trevor Bayne and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. racing the No. 6 and No. 17 Ford Fusions, respectively, in NASCAR’s Cup series, Kevin Kidd and Tommy Wheeler will lead Roush Fenway’s overall competition efforts going forward. Kidd will assume the role of Competition Director, and Wheeler will serve as the team’s Operations Director.
“We have been able to shore up our plans for 2017 and we feel that this will continue to move us in a direction that will yield improved performance and results,” said Roush Fenway co-owner Jack Roush. “We saw improvement in our cars and made substantial gains in our performance at times last season, and we will continue to build on that by maintaining a robust engineering group in order to take the next step by consistently running up front.”
The No. 6 team will once again be led by veteran crew chief Matt Puccia. Brian Pattie, who was the crew chief for the No. 16 Cup Series team last season, will transition to crew chief of the No. 17 team. Nick Sandler, who served as the No. 17 crew chief the last two seasons, has been named Director of Engineering.
Robbie Reiser, who the team said has played an integral role on the competition side at Roush Fenway Racing for a number of years, will remain with the organization in a yet to be determined position.
Kidd has served as Roush Fenway’s Cup Team Manager – supervising all at-track operations – for the previous two seasons, after coming over from Joe Gibbs Racing where he worked as a crew chief for the previous half decade. He holds a mechanical engineering degree from Virginia Tech, and has worked as a lead engineer for multiple teams and drivers.
Wheeler, who holds a B.S. in physics from Davidson College, joined Roush Fenway in 2009. A 20-plus year veteran of the sport, he has served in many capacities for the team, including as the team’s production director since 2011, overseeing the building and production of all of the organization’s Cup and XFINITY Series cars.
Looking forward to the 2017 season with @AJDinger and @Chris_Buescher as a two car team in the NASCAR premier series! #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/RHCfBfvay2
— JTG Daugherty Racing (@NASCAR47) November 29, 2016
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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