Blown Right-Front Tire Derails Buescher at Mid-Ohio

NASCAR Nationwide Series – Nationwide Children’s Hospital 200
August 16th, 2014 – Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course

Making his first start at the 13-turn, 2.25-mile road course, After placing outside the top-15 in two of the practice sessions on Friday afternoon, James Buescher turned up the wick during qualifying and placed the No. 99 Toyota Care / Rheem Camry in the 11th start spot for the Nationwide Children’s Hospital 200 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The Texas native settled into a groove running just outside the top-10 for the first portion of the 90-lap race, it was just one lap before the first scheduled green-flag pit stop that Buescher suffered a blown right-front tire. The blown tire resulted in the second of five yellow flags that slowed the field during the day. After limping the Camry back to pit road, the crew changed four tires and a gave Buescher a full load of Sunoco racing fuel. On the ensuing restart, Buescher restarted at the tail end of the lead lap cars as a penalty for pitting to early. Just after the restart Buescher came over to the radio reporting that his Toyota Camry had more issues, he brought his Toyota Care Camry back down pit road to the attention of his crew. The RAB Racing crew found a broken sway bar forcing them to the garage for extensive repairs. The 24-year-old later rejoined the 39-car field six laps down to the leader. The race strategy for the Toyota Care team changed and went into conservative mode trying to gain as many spots as possible. When the checkered flag waved, Buescher brought the No. 99 Toyota Camry home in the 25th position, six laps down.

It was another tough day for our Toyota Care team. After a solid qualifying effort we felt like we had a great Toyota Care Camry for the race. Coming into the race we knew that the race traditionally had a lot of yellows so we just didn’t want to be one of them. Unfortunately just before our first scheduled pit stop we had a right front go down and it ruined the rest of our day. It would have been great to keep our momentum rolling coming off a strong showing last week at Watkins Glen but we’ll regroup from this and go into Bristol and work hard to secure a top-10. – James Buescher

Start – 11, Finish – 25, Laps Led – 0, Points – 18