Chris Buescher on respectful racing, his distaste for roundabouts and more: 12 Questions

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Each week, The Athletic asks the same 12 questions to a different race car driver. Up next: RFK Racing driver Chris Buescher, who last year was in contention to win the Darlington spring race until a late incident with Tyler Reddick took both of them out. The NASCAR Cup Series returns to Darlington this weekend, and Buescher currently ranks 11th in the standings.

1. What was one of the first autographs you got as a kid and what do you remember about that moment?

Jeremy McGrath. I got to go to a handful of motocross races growing up, and that was one of the first ones I remember having up in my room. Jeremy McGrath, John Force and Rusty Wallace were my big three on the wall.

2. What is the most miserable you have ever been inside a race car?

Do you remember Texas when it misted for three days (in 2020)? I was the caution that put us under red when it was raining (on Sunday before the race was resumed Wednesday). Got into the wet and had damage. We decided that it was fixable, but we were not allowed to work on it for three days. But we said, “Alright, we need to fix it. We need to run this thing out, gather as many points as we can at the end of the day.” Three days later, we get on track. We fix it. We ran around all day off the pace, just miserable out of our minds — and we gained one point. Nobody else had any issues throughout the day. Gained one point.

3. Outside of racing, what is your most recent memory of something you got way too competitive about?

Trying to beat somebody through a roundabout. I hate roundabouts. They’re making a comeback, and I don’t agree. I get pretty hyped up over my lane choice there. It’s like a Choose Rule every time I’m on my way to work. It’s that judgment call: There’s a semi in one lane and they have trailer swing, so where do you fit without this being dangerous, and can you outrun somebody that you feel stuck behind?

4. What do people get wrong about you?

I don’t know. I don’t talk to enough people. What are they saying? I don’t know if I could answer that one.

5. What kind of Uber passenger are you, and how much do you care about your Uber rating?

I don’t think I have Uber. I have Lyft. Are they the same thing now? Everyone has Lyft and Uber in the window. That stresses me out. I don’t like having this many apps — even the social media apps. Everyone within our group says, “You need a TikTok, you need a Snapchat, you need …” I was like, “You got me up to three. I’m done.” So I’m not going to have Uber and Lyft.

6. This is a wild card question. I know you don’t know the perception of yourself, but I feel like you are NASCAR’s most underrated driver. And that’s been the case for a long time now, even though you’ve continued to win. Do you care about that? Does that bother you?

Not really. I’ve been in that position most of my career. We’ve been more of an underdog for a long period of time. We’ve been in situations where we weren’t expected to do very well, and we’ve been able to do it. To some extent, we should be in the conversation a little bit more. We’ve been able to put results up on the board and acquire wins and be a rather large part of the resurgence here at RFK. I’m proud of that and proud of everybody here for helping me be part of that.

7. This my 16th year of doing these 12 Questions interviews, so I’m going back to an old question. In 2015, I asked you: Do you ever get mistaken for another driver? And at the time, you said no one, except a crew guy would sign an autograph for you at times. How about 10 years later?

There was a time in Bristol when a woman had a full-blown conversation with me. She said, “Hey, I know your uncle. I’m from your area.” I’m sitting here like, “Oh, OK. I don’t know what uncle you’re talking about.” She starts name-dropping, and I’m sitting there thinking, “I don’t know who that is…” And then she says something about Virginia (Buescher is from Texas).

I said, “Ma’am, who do you think I am?” And she just got this look of horror on her face. She goes, “Are you not Jeb (Burton)?” I was like, “Ohhhh. That was a fascinating conversation, but you do not know my uncle, and I am not Jeb.”

You’d think as soon as you opened your mouth, the accent would have given it away.

You know, I don’t know if I had much chance to talk during that conversation.

8. Other than one of your teammates, name a driver who you’d be one of the first people to congratulate them in victory lane if they won a race.

Probably SVG (Shane van Gisbergen). I’ve been pretty impressed by him coming into this sport. We’ve been strong on road courses as well, so we’ve been around each other racing a lot. I can certainly appreciate the style to be aggressive but not out there just to flat-out dump people or send those huge door-slammers in the corners. We have (a) pretty similar style of driving, and I can appreciate that.

Did he come to your victory lane after you two battled for the win at Watkins Glen last fall?

He did. He came over and said, “Good race,” and he apologized for hitting me in Turn 1. I was like, “Man, I wouldn’t expect you not to hit me. I appreciate you not just wiping us all out.” That’s good racing on late-race restarts, right? Obviously, I got into him crossing over later on the next lap, too.

At the Clash (in February), he moved me on the last lap. I was walking out of the track and I ended up walking up next to him as he was signing some stuff, and he looked over and was like, “Man, I’m really sorry about that.” I was like, “Sorry for what? We were short-track racing. We’re on a bull ring. The way you did it is what I would have done to you in a similar situation.” There’s a way to go about it without just knocking people up the hill all the time, and I appreciate that.

9. How much do you use AI technology, whether for your job or daily life?

Zero, but my two teammates (Brad Keselowski and Ryan Preece) have been trying to educate me a little bit on Grok. I used it once and I searched, “What bits are best for cutting porcelain tile?” And boy, that was a rabbit hole. Grok basically told me I didn’t ask a good enough question, and that it was too open-ended, which made me feel even dumber. I’ve got some work to do.

Is Chris Buescher NASCAR’s most underrated driver? “To some extent, we should be in the conversation a little bit more,” he says. (Chris Graythen / Getty Images)

10. What is a time in your life that was really challenging, but you feel proud of the way that you responded to it?

I think back to our ARCA racing days, driving for Roulo Brothers (Racing) up there in the Chicago area. We weren’t expected to do some of the things we did — to be able to win the championship and win 10 races throughout the course of a (few) years.

It was brutal, just grueling. We were working 89 hours a week. We did not have enough help. We had a bunch of people who volunteered their time from local body shops, coming over and trying to mud a fender back together. You didn’t feel like you had time to take a breath, and it was overwhelming at the time. I was young, and I didn’t have a whole lot of other responsibilities, so it worked. But I look back now, and it’s amazing how much fun we really were having if you can put it into perspective.

11. What needs to happen in NASCAR to take the sport to the next level of popularity?

I’m a little bit more of a purist in several ways. When we get into the summer (under the current points system), if you don’t have that win locked up yet, then you have to be too careful. If you get a win Week 1, you’re able to be reckless at points and that puts you in a spot to take big chances. I like the consistency of a full season. I like to just treat every week like that’s the only one that matters, and everything else can accumulate from there. So a little bit of a simpler process would be good. We’d have a mixed reaction from fans on that, so I don’t think it would ultimately be the right answer for everybody, but that’s my little opinion.

12. Each week I ask a driver to give me a question for the next person. Last week was Austin Dillon. He says: “You have to choose someone to ride a bull for eight seconds, but if they don’t make it, you die.” So who do you put on the bull? Who do you trust to make it?

I would counter: Do I get to choose the bull? Because I think that’s more important. You can put professional bull riders on a fantastic bull, and they’re not making it eight seconds. You’re dead anyway.

I’d pick a straight-up professional. I am not saying, “Oh, I’ve got a buddy I think could do this, hand him a couple stiff drinks and maybe he’ll make it.” No, absolutely not. I don’t trust any of my friends. There’s nobody in this hauler I trust to do that for me.

That’s why the more important question is, “Can you choose the bull?” I want a tame, massaged bull just living its best life. You jump on his back and it just looks at you like, “What the hell you doing right now?” But there’s no way for me to come out of this alive; he’s setting me up.

The next interview I’m doing is with William Byron. Do you have a question for him?

There are two very different kinds of gamblers in Vegas. I’m curious if he’s like a $100 guy or he’s got five grand he’s willing to spend and chalk it up to entertainment value. That’s how I spend $200 on my worst days.

(Top photo of Chris Buescher at last month’s race at Las Vegas: Chris Graythen / Getty Images)

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