RFK Racing’s Buescher surprises at Dover with pole
Chris Buescher was the surprise pole winner Saturday at Dover (Del.) Motor Speedway, turning a lap of 160.149 mph to win his first career top spot.
The RFK Racing driver will be joined on the front row by Denny Hamlin, ordered this week by NASCAR to begin sensitivity training after he posted an anti-Asian meme.
“Pretty cool of RFK to get our first pole,” Buescher said. “It’s a pretty cool start for us.”
Buescher also earned the first pole for RFK Racing in the No. 17 Ford. Brad Keselowski left Team Penske in November for an ownership stake in Jack Roush’s organization, forging a new partnership. Keselowski and Buescher opened strong for RFK Racing when they won the 150mile qualifying races at Daytona International Speedway in February.
It’s been a bit of a rough ride over the past two months.
Keselowski was rocked last month with crushing penalties for illegal modifications made to his Ford and Buescher hasn’t finished better than 15th in his any of his last four races. Buescher has only one career win over 232 career Cup starts.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Buescher said. “We’re slowly and steadily building up through the season. It’s not the race. We have a lot of laps left to go. But a heck of a start.”
Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott for Hendrick Motorsports start third and fourth in Chevrolets. Ryan Blaney rounds out the top five for Sunday’s race on the mile concrete track.
Hamlin, a three-time Daytona 500 winner who drives a Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, shrugged off a messy week to go 159.744 mph in the No. 11 Toyota and starts second. Hamlin posted an anti-Asian meme from the television comedy “Family Guy” that criticized Kyle Larson’s driving on the last lap at Talladega Superspeedway last week.
Hamlin deleted the tweet Monday night and apologized.
“I think if you historically look back to my performance to distraction, it correlates to a pretty good weekend,” Hamlin said. “I'd probably bet on us if I were you.”
BERRY WINS XFINITY RACE
Josh Berry led a dominant outing for JR Motorsports at Dover Motor Speedway and raced to his first NASCAR Xfinity Series victory of the season on Saturday.
Berry had tears in his eyes and hoisted his daughter in the air after he took the checkered flag in the No. 8 Chevrolet for his third career Xfinity win in 39 starts. Berry finished second in last year’s Dover race.
“We were there when it counted, man,” Berry said.
JR Motorsports put four drivers in the top five on the one-mile concrete track. Justin Allgaier was second, Noah Gragson was fourth and 18-year-old Sam Mayer was fifth. Ty Gibbs interrupted the JR Motorsports run with a third-place finish. Allgaier has nine consecutive top-10 finishes at Dover, including two wins. He led a racehigh 67 laps.
Gragson also won his fifth career $100,000 bonus as the highest-finishing eligible driver in the Xfinity-sponsored program. Gragson, who won last week’s triple overtime race at Talladega, said he’d divide his share with his race team.
VEEKAY A SURPRISE INDYCAR POLE WINNER
Rinus VeeKay led an upset in IndyCar qualifying to position himself to race for the win at Barber Motorsports Park at Leeds, Alabama.
The Dutchman was the surprise pole-winner for Sunday’s race following a qualifying session that saw most of IndyCar’s top names fail to advance through the rounds.
The first round on Saturday bounced both Will Power, a two-time winner at Barber, and six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon. The two are among the best active drivers in IndyCar, but both struggled around the picturesque permanent road course that is considered one of the most physical tracks on the circuit.
Told he was starting
19th, Power frowned; “That’s a terrible place for this track. Terrible.”
Power in 2012 won from ninth — the farthest starting spot for a winner in 11 previous events. The average starting spot is 3.2 for previous race winners.
That puts VeeKay in position for his second career victory.
“Confidence is high and this is a track where passing is not happening too much,” the 21-year-old said.