For Chris Buescher, Darlington was the second straight week where he suffered a heartbreaking loss in a race. This time around, however, he was not in contention to take the checkered flag and the reason was Tyler Reddick. The 23XI Racing car seemed to unintentionally push the RFK Racing driver into the wall after a slide job went wrong. Buescher was fuming after the race and former Cup Series driver Jeff Burton believed he had every right to.
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Per Burton, Reddick’s move was a desperate maneuver that drivers usually make when not a lot of time is left. The 23XI Racing star did it a lot earlier and had he been patient, he would have been able to take the lead and eventually win the race. Inexperience must have played a part in it but for a driver as good as that of the #45 car, this was highly unusual. Reddick apologized to Buescher immediately after the race but by then, the damage was already done.
“This kind of wreck is relatively new. NASCAR is over 75 years old, we didn’t see these kinds of wrecks. This was an attempted slide job gone bad and I didn’t like the timing of it. I thought that there was enough time for Tyler to sit out a little bit, try to make something happen, plenty of laps left. But there’s been some success with these kinds of moves so when somebody tries and it doesn’t work, you have to understand that they have seen this move work and that’s why they’re trying to make it happen,” Burton said.
However, new evidence suggests that it might not have entirely been Tyler Reddick’s fault that Chris Buescher finished as low as he did. It turns out that the #17 car was already getting away from its driver as the race reached its closing stages.
Tyler Reddick single-handedly did not ruin Chris Buescher’s weekend
The post-race altercation between the two drivers definitely suggested that Reddick was solely responsible for Chris Buescher not having a W beside his name after Darlington. Even the 23XI Racing driver believed that it was entirely his fault. Well, Jeff Burton revealed with evidence that it was not the case. It turns out that the #17 car was already loose before the #45 made contact and hit the wall which kind of bounced him into Reddick again.
Now that’s not to say that the 23XI Racing driver is entirely free of blame considering his dive bomb ended up cementing Buescher further into the wall. That move was unnecessary with 10 laps remaining and they were way too close for comfort especially when there was no one around them. Either way, it is back to the drawing board for the #17 team who will look to secure playoff qualification in Charlotte after the All-Star weekend.
