One more step: Winning mentality providing drive for Chris Buescher, No. 17 RFK team in 2023

To Chris Buescher, the name of the game is to always take that next step.

A brief glimpse at what the No. 17 Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing Ford has achieved so far this season could immediately illustrate how many steps have already been climbed. The 30-year-old Buescher at the season’s halfway point holds eight top-10 and three top-five finishes in the NASCAR Cup Series heading into Sunday’s Quaker State 400 available at Walmart at Atlanta Motor Speedway (7 p.m. ET, USA, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).

But for the native Texan, however, that next step doesn’t equate to more top-10 or top-five finishes. Instead, the plan is to be a consistent, weekly contender for a trip to Victory Lane, with another attempt coming at the 1.54-mile superspeedway.

“That next step is probably the hardest step, and it very well could be one of the smallest steps, but it’s just that matter of going from a top-10 car to a car that has a chance to win consistently week in and week out,” Buescher told NASCAR.com Thursday. “We’ve had some shots to win races, but not as consistent as we would like and have the speed to be able to contend for them at as many as we would’ve hoped for.”

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Of course, any winding road can take many years to navigate, and for Buescher, this was no different. Since joining the RFK ranks as a 15-year-old, claiming the 2012 ARCA Menards Series title, winning the 2015 NASCAR Xfinity Series championship and continuing to grind for RFK at the Cup level all the way to 2023 after pit stops at Front Row Motorsports and JTG-Daugherty Racing, Buescher has relished the opportunity of being a part of an organization always yearning for consistent, winning success on the regular.

Witnessing such eagerness from his fellow team members only made Buescher that much more determined over the years. Fast forward to 2023, and the optimism and team culture is as strong as ever.

“For me, on a more personal level of being in the shop and being around a lot of the same individuals that have been there for a lot longer than I have, to see their enthusiasm and their mindset in a better place than I’ve seen it in a decade,” Buescher said. “It is really, really neat, and it means something, and it’s cool to see that progression. Not that anybody wasn’t ever hungry, but it gets frustrating, and when you try and put everything you can into it, and you can’t find the result with it, and we’re finding results now, and I think that’s keeping everybody fired up and just a really solid place to work from.”

An optimistic mindset has only helped Buescher discover his prowess on every type of track, varying from superspeedway to short tracks and road courses alike. However, this year’s success started to come to a major head beginning last year, where Buescher put together a career-best season at the Cup level, finishing with 10 top-10 finishes and three top-five finishes in conjunction with a triumph at the Bristol Night Race under the lights during the postseason.

“Then, from the 17 bunch, I think we hit a pretty good stride last season,” Buescher said. “The Bristol win was obviously huge. Bucket list item for so many of us, and Scott [Graves, crew chief] and myself actually lost an Xfinity race there on a green-white-checkered years back together, and it still hurt and haunted both of us. So that was a big recovery … for the team itself, the competitiveness has been there. We’ve got a great group of people that work fantastic together. We’ve been able to really be competitive on the race track, off the truck, on pit road, whatever it may be, we’re really firing on all eight right now.”

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For Buescher, having driver-owner and 2012 Cup champion Brad Keselowski as a teammate has only helped accelerate taking that next leap forward. From race weekend conversations to organization-wide company lunch meetings, Keselowski has emphasized the importance of always striving to improve, no matter what success might look like in its current form.

“We can’t lay over or let up. That’s not there. That’s not what our sport is,” Buescher said. “Not that it’s realistic, but if you are winning every week it does not mean you can let up, and that’s something that’s hard to keep everybody in that mindset sometimes, but I think everybody gets it. Brad did a really good job talking to everybody and kind of just reminding everyone that it’s always about learning and being better than you are the previous day and what we can build on, and that’s what we’re after.

“Our sport just doesn’t sit still. … Now is the time to shift gears and go harder.”

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Shifting those very same gears is the goal as the regular season winds down. With Buescher currently sitting 11th in points, the priority will be to scoop up a win and clinch a berth in the 2023 postseason. The opportunity to find that elusive win could very well come at Atlanta, where the No. 17 has shown quick speed recently, despite crashing out in each of the last two races there.

No matter what recent history at Atlanta might show, Buescher will strive to continue demonstrating the positive attitude that has seized the No. 17 team by the horns. The hunger to win has only ever grown, and after Bristol last year provided a taste, Buescher is now eager to make the spectacle more of the norm. Making all of the right moves, whether from finding the right groove on the track to emphasizing consistent growth off the track, will only make that norm become possible.

Consider it one more step in need of climbing.

“It’s an execution day,” Buescher said. “It’s all pieces coming together, and I think that’s pretty much it for any win, but you need to be fast off the truck, you need to have smart decisions during the race. You need to have fast, clean pit stops. Strategy and weather need to go your way, and all of the above.

“It takes everything, which is why we talk about our sport and how much of a team sport it is and what sometimes a casual fan doesn’t realize is it’s not myself in the car deciding to go inside or outside of a car on a single lap that’s make-or-breaking our day. If we have a great day, I didn’t do all of that work. That came from people back at the shop, that came from our practice adjustments, that came from pit road and our spotter on top and strategy. It’s a massive puzzle, and everything has to sit into place on the right day to be able to make it work. So, that’s what we’re focusing on is getting that win.”