Catchfence

2009 Raybestos Rookie Contender

Raybestos Rookie James Buescher posted the sixth-best speed in today’s Michigan 200 practice session. His best finish in nine NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races is an 11th-place effort at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway (race No. 4).

JAMES BUESCHER, No. 10 INTERNATIONAL MAXXFORCE DIESEL FORD:

YOU HAVE HAD AN UP AND DOWN SEASON BUT YOU’RE FAST RIGHT OFF THE TRUCK TODAY. “We’re pretty good. The Maxx Force International Truck unloaded awesome. We barely adjusted anything. We changed front shocks and we changed the left rear spring and that’s about it. We did a mock qualifying run and I think we ended up sixth on the board at the end of that practice. The guys did a really great job getting this truck turned around from Texas. This is the exact same truck that I had at Texas. Same body, same four springs, same everything except for the motor. I think we’ve figured out what the problem was at Texas. I don’t know if there was anything wrong with the motor we had there or the wheel bearings were packed too tight. Something was binding up somewhere, something crazy was happening. Just had no speed at Texas and we brought the exact same stuff here, just another Roush-Yates horsepowered engine. We unloaded great and we’re right up there with the other two Fords and all three of us are right there. I think Colin [Braun] is fifth, I’m sixth and Rick [Crawford] is eighth. The guys did a great job getting the truck turned around. I’m just happy that we’re at the top of the board.”

COMMENT ON HOW MUCH OF A ROLE THE DRIVER PLAYS HERE AT MICHIGAN. “Seems like to me that it’s kind of a mix between a Kansas and Daytona, something in between, where it includes the driver and it doesn’t include the driver. I mean, it’s an intermediate track but you have to include the drafting part of it. If it was like Daytona we would have brought our Daytona truck here. We brought the same truck we ran Kansas, Charlotte and Texas with. It unloaded good and it’s running like it did at Charlotte: up front.”

CAN YOU APPLY WHAT YOU LEARNED AT AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY TO HERE? “In a way. I mean, all these intermediate tracks are kind of similar. This place has a little bit more grip than some of the other intermediates and a little bit more room to race on. There’s a ton of room at Texas but after a few laps the tires get wore out. Same thing at Atlanta, the tires get wore out and you’re sliding around everywhere. Here is seems like after the tires fall off you can still hold it wide open if you’re truck is real good. The only time I really slid around at all was when I tried to get down right on the bottom in Turns 1 and 2 and just got a little loose and decided I’m not going to go down there anymore. I think we’ll qualify top-10, hopefully top-five, maybe get a little more speed out of it for qualifying, and see how we can draft and race good.”

WHAT HAS BEEN THE MOST CHALLENGING THING OF THE SEASON? “Last couple of weeks have just been frustrating overall. Go to Dover and we didn’t unload great and got the truck handling pretty good at the end of practice and the race starts and running pretty decent and blew a right front. Luckily we didn’t blow it under green. The caution came out and we were slowing down and blew it. That was fortunate and unfortunate. Moved on to Texas and had a miserable weekend. It’s just frustrating to be in that situation but we pulled ourselves out of it and hopefully we don’t have any problems here at Michigan this weekend.”

Raybestos® brand brake and chassis parts are produced by affiliated companies in Affinia’s Global Brake and Chassis Group, the leading manufacturer of braking systems and chassis parts in the transportation industry. The brake line includes everything from brake drums to rotors, pads, shoes and hydraulic parts, while the chassis line features tie rods, ball points, idler arms and sway bar links. Raybestos brand braking and chassis systems are also the only systems used by NASCAR’s Joe Gibbs Racing in competition. For more information about Raybestos brakes, visit Raybestos.com. For more information on Raybestos Chassis visit RaybestosChassis.com

Affinia Group Inc. is a global leader in the on and off-highway replacement products and service industry. In North America the Affinia family of brands includes WIX® Filters, Raybestos®, AIMCO® and BrakePro® brake products, and McQuay-Norris® and Raybestos™ Chassis parts. South American and European brands include Nakata®, Filtron®, Urba® and Quinton Hazell®. For more information, visit affiniagroup.com.

* Affinia Group Inc.’s affiliated companies include Brake Parts Inc. WIX Filtration Corp LLC, Affinia Products Corp LLC and other high quality manufacturers of the Affinia family of brands.

- Camp & Associates, Inc., for Raybestos, Press Release