NASCAR Nationwide Series - Toyota Care 250
April 25th, 2014 - Richmond International Raceway

After sitting out nearly a three-hour rain delay, the Toyota Care 250 finally got underway late Friday evening. Dealing with heavy fog and uncertain weather, James Buescher and the No. 99 Rheem team rolled off the grid in the 15th position. Buescher wasted no time on the races initial start and moved up a couple positions to 12th place. On lap five that the race saw its first of five yellow flags for a wreck entering Turn 3. It wasn't until lap 40 when the NASCAR competition yellow flew that the field including the No. 99 Rheem team ducked down pit road for the first time. The No. 99 Rheem team went to work on their Toyota Camry giving Buescher four tires, fuel and an air-pressure adjustment. After the race got back going, Buescher raced his way inside the top-10 for the first time on lap 48. Deep into a long green flag run, Buescher radioed to his Rheem crew that his right front tire was worn out and he wasn't able to turn into the corner like he needed too. Buescher ended up slipping back to as far as 22nd on one lap down. Buescher's next stop would be a green-flag pit stop on lap 116. After getting four fresh Goodyear Eagles tires, Buescher raced his way back onto the lead lap and back inside the top-15. It was on lap 198 that Buescher narrowly missing a multi-car accident directly in front of him in Turn 1. Buescher did a great job of missing the spinning cars and came out unscathed. Restarting in the 10th position, Buescher made a couple daring three-wide passes that vaulted him up to the eighth position. Buescher ended giving back a couple of those positions on the last green flag run and settled into 10th. Holding off a late-race challenge, Buescher was able to secure the teams first top-10 finish of the 2014 season with a 10th-place finish at Richmond International Raceway.

It was a great night for my Rheem Toyota Camry team. We were struggling early in the race with loose getting in and it caused for my middle of the corner to be tight but Chris Rice made the right calls all night to get the No. 99 Rheem Camry fixed up and allow for us to drive back up to inside the top-10. As a team we'd made a lot of gain this weekend from leading all of final practice to running securing our first top-10, hopefully all the bad luck we've been having this season is behind us and we can use tonight as our new starting point for the season. These guys haven't given up and we're still fighting hard for more. Superspeedways is one my strong suits, after running inside the top-five at Daytona, I'm really looking forward to getting to Talladega and giving these guys another solid finish. - James Buescher

Start - 15, Finish - 10, Laps Led - 0, Points - 34

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