NASCAR: Top 3 ‘MVP’ candidates for the 2021 season
By Asher Fair
NASCAR “MVP” candidates for 2021: No. 2 – Chris Buescher
Chris Buescher doesn’t tend to generate a lot of hype, and that was once again the case in 2021, despite the fact that he quietly had a solid, consistent season.
Save for the fact that he qualified for the playoffs as a rookie in 2016 with an upset win in a rain-shortened race at Pocono Raceway, the 2021 season was easily the best of his career.
Buescher had a career year despite the fact that he was stripped from what would have been a season-high second place finish in the regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway due to the fact that his #17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford failed post-race inspection.
It was this disqualification alone that kept Buescher from ranking second in the standings among the non-playoff drivers.
The Roush Fenway Racing driver led all non-playoff drivers in laps led with 93, and perhaps most notably, he finished nine spots ahead of his teammate in the standings (would have been 10 without the disqualification). Teammate Ryan Newman finished in 28th place.
While Newman certainly hasn’t been performing at the level he once did, this is an extremely underrated statistic for Buescher considering the fact that Roush Fenway Racing is a team that has been struggling in recent years.
An underrated storyline entering 2022 will be the performance of Buescher with the arrival of Brad Keselowski as not only a driver but a team co-owner.
Speaking of drivers as co-owners…