WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. - September 15, 2024 - Chris Buescher took advantage of a mistake by Shane Van Gisbergen on the final lap to pass him and win Sunday’s Go Bowling at the Glen, giving Ford its fourth straight NASCAR Cup Series victory.

The race came down to an overtime restart, with Van Gisbergen getting past Buescher after a physical turn one. He held that advantage all the way until the two cars got to the bus stop on the final lap. That’s when Van Gisbergen clipped the inside retaining barrier and slowed his momentum enough to allow Buescher to squeeze to his inside and make the decisive pass.

For Buescher, it marked his first Cup Series triumph on a road course and continued a streak that has seen him finish in the top 10 13 times in the last 15 such events.

Chase Briscoe was the top-finishing Ford playoff driver, coming home 6th, and was joined in the top 10 by Michael McDowell, Ryan Preece, and another playoff Mustang pilot, Austin Cindric, in 10th.

The other Ford playoff drivers had up-and-down days, with Joey Logano finishing 15th, Harrison Burton is 24th, Brad Keselowski 26th, and Ryan Blaney 38th. Blaney was involved in a multi-car incident on Lap 1 and was forced to retire early with a broken steering column.

Four drivers will be eliminated on Saturday night, Sept. 21, when Bristol Motor Speedway hosts the final race in the Round of 16 at 7:30 p.m. (USA, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

UNOFFICIAL NCS RACE TOP-10 FINISHERS
1st – Chris Buescher
2nd – Shane Van Gisbergen
3rd – Carson Hocevar
4th – Ross Chastain
5th – Zane Smith
6th – Chase Briscoe
7th – Michael McDowell
8th – Corey LaJoie
9th – Ryan Preece
10th – Austin Cindric

REMAINING FORD FINISHERS
11th – Noah Gragson
15th – Joey Logano
16th – Todd Gilliland
24th – Harrison Burton
25th – Josh Berry
26th – Brad Keselowski
29th – Justin Haley
35th – Kaz Grala
38th – Ryan Blaney

PLAYOFF STANDINGS
1 - Joey Logano (1 win)
2 - Christopher Bell (+46)
3 - Austin Cindric (+43)
4 - Alex Bowman (+41)
5 - Daniel Suarez (+36)
6 - Tyler Reddick (+30)
7 - Chase Elliott (+30)
8 - Ryan Blaney (+29)
9 - Kyle Larson (+26)
10 - William Byron (+25)
11 - Chase Briscoe (+6)
12 - Ty Gibbs (+6)

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13 - Denny Hamlin (-6)
14 - Brad Keselowski (-12)
15 - Martin Truex Jr. (-14)
16 - Harrison Burton (-20)

CHRIS BUESCHER, No. 17 BuildSubmarines.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse – VICTORY LANE INTERVIEW:  
“That’s such a good BuildSubmarines.com Ford Mustang.  This team is so great.  Our long run speed was just phenomenal.  I thought we lost it there on that last one and to stay right there with him.  That was the spot he was better than us and he missed it, so I tried a crossover.  He went to cut and just hard racing there.  It’s just such an awesome finish.  To be that good for so much at the end of the race, all race, to get a win is good.  We came here to be a spoiler and we’re gonna do that.”

DOES THIS ELIMINATE SOME OF THE STING OF NOT BEING IN THE PLAYOFFS?  
“Yeah, certainly.  We would have liked to have won a couple weeks ago, but this is huge.  It’s such a big win for us.  Everybody at RFK has worked so hard and to finally get a road course win.  We’ve been so close so many times and to finally pull that off is fantastic.”

WHAT WAS IT LIKE WHEN YOU SAW HIM MAKE THAT MISTAKE?  DID YOU KNOW IT WAS YOUR SHOT?  
“I knew it was.  I got in there deeper than I had been and I think he was still going, so I had a good feeling that it was probably gonna bottom out.  It’s smoother, not smooth, so that was a big moment and a big opportunity for us and I was able to roll on by.”

CHASE BRISCOE, No. 14 HighPoint.com Ford Mustang Dark Horse –
HOW BIG WAS THIS DAY FOR YOU AND THIS TEAM? (Finished 6th)
 “It was huge.  It’s what we needed to do was to score stage points and run good in the race and we were able to do that.  It was a really good, solid day for our HighPoint.com Ford.  I felt like I could have got a couple more points, but just didn’t want to risk it there at the end.  I knew I was in a pretty good position compared to a lot of the field, so we did what we needed to do and now we just need to go do that same thing next week.  We need to just hit singles and doubles and don’t do anything crazy.  As long as we just execute all day long, it should be enough.  We’ll just go on to Bristol and see what we can do.”

RYAN PREECE, No. 41 Mohawk Northeast Ford Mustang Dark Horse (Finished 9th)
“The day didn’t start out very well, but it got a lot better. It was pretty chaotic and ultimately we had a pretty good car. Track position was eveyrthing today. Knowing where we were and never having it. Chad was aggressive on the strategy and made the right calls to get us track position and we kept it. Ultimately, we got the race finish that we deserved, even with those late race cautions.

RYAN BLANEY, No. 12 Menards/Pennzoil Ford Mustang Dark Horse (Retired early due to accident on Lap 1)
YOU WERE TALKING TO THE NASCAR OFFICIALS. THEY SAID YOU ARE DONE FOR THE DAY. DID YOU FEEL LIKE YOU SHOULD HAVE HAD TIME ON THE CLOCK TO REPAIR THE CAR? 
“They didn’t give us a chance to fix it. How are they going to dictate if we are done or not? They have no idea of the damage. They said because I couldn’t drive it back to the pit box that we were done, but if you have four flats you get towed back to the pit box. You can’t drive that back. I don't know what is going on or why they won’t give us a shot to work on it but I don't agree with it. I don't even know what happened, honestly. We stacked up and I caught someone in the lfet front and it completely broke the steering. I don't know if we could have fixed it. But that is the frustrating part, just didn’t even give us a chance and just ended our day without even letting us look at it before it is in the garage. It stinks.”

NASCAR XFINITY SERIES (September 14 – Watkins Glen)

• Driving the No. 15 Ford Mustang Dark Horse, Joey Logano finished 9th to lead Ford.
• Riley Herbst finished 13th, and Cole Custer finished 21st, as both drivers were involved in late-race multi-car incidents.
• Ryan Sieg collected valuable points during Stage 2, finished 22nd, and is now 44 points below the playoff cut line heading into the regular season finale next weekend.
• The regular season concludes next Friday night with the Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).