RFK looking to keep building momentum after strong Dover run

RFK Racing’s resurgence continued Monday at the Monster Mile.

For the first time in almost a decade, the team placed two cars inside the top 10 in back-to-back races, with Brad Keselowski finishing eighth and Chris Buescher finishing ninth in the Wurth 400 at Dover Motor Speedway.

“We had a good recovery,” Keselowski said. “Had top-five in the first stage, had a pit road issue, and we recovered from that. Solid top10 day – drove back through. We’re not far off here. Just looking for a little more, and I felt like we were pretty close. Excited about that, proud of our day – especially Chris running well. Just a strong showing.”

The pit road issue Keselowski referenced occurred after Stage 1, when a tire on the No. 6 rolled out in front of the car as he was pulling away.

But he was able to rebound for his fifth top 10 of the season, already only one shy of his six that he amassed in 2022, and second in a row. It’s also his 11th top 10 at Dover and first since 2020.

Buescher, who also scored stage points in the two opening frames, was pleased with the raw speed the company as a whole brought to Dover, where he won the pole and led 18 laps en route to an eighth-place finish last season.

But more than anything, he was happy to get a finish indicative of where they ran all afternoon.

“Probably fifth to 10th is probably where we were going to be,” he said following his fourth top 10 finish of the season. “Everyone did a good job on pit road, kept track position, worked hard on-track, and it’s a solid one. Just wanted to be a little more free on that last race restart to see if we could drive forward a little bit more, but it was good to stay up there all day and in contention.”

RFK finds itself ninth (Keselowski) and 12th (Buescher) in the points standings headed to Kansas next weekend, where they’ll aim for their third consecutive dual top 10 finishes.

“We knew we were going to have fast cars at Talladega, and fortunately we were able to get the good result there that probably would reflect the speed in our cars. But, it’s hard to say if that’s the one you’re going to take momentum from. This one is,” Buescher said. “This was a really good day. Especially when it’s eight or nine cars on the lead lap at the end. We stayed in it that whole time. That’s strong.”

“It was just a big day for us. We’re just grinding,” Keselowski said. “The whole company is just grinding and committed to taking us to the next level to get both these cars in the playoffs.”

Buescher particularly is happy with the timing of these solid runs, hoping the momentum can translate and the speed can be maintained for the upcoming summer stretch.

“I think this was about the time we hit our stride last year,” he said. I feel like we’ve had a little bit of a stronger start to the season, but not always had the results. But we have speed, and we were able to work steadily today and be solid. We got the result we deserve and worked for.”

Story originally appeared on Racer