Kyle Petty credits Chris Buescher for handling situation with Tyler Reddick after Darlington

Kyle Petty heaped some praise on Chris Buescher for the way he handled himself following an incident with Tyler Reddick at Darlington Raceway on Sunday afternoon.

As the laps dwindled down in the Goodyear 400, it seemed as if Buescher’s No. 17 was going to find victory lane, one week after missing out on his first win of 2024 by 0.001 seconds, and having his heart ripped out of his chest in the process.

The aforementioned Reddick wasn’t going to go down without swinging, as he made an aggressive move to Buescher’s inside in the corner, but the No. 45 couldn’t stick the landing. He slid up into Buescher and ruined both of their evenings, and the victory for the No. 17 and the No. 45 was no longer possible.

While his boss and teammate Brad Keselowski getting the win was a solid consolation, don’t tell that to Buescher, as he was hopping mad afterwards, darting over the Reddick following the race for a heated altercation. While Reddick apologized, it didn’t make the sting go away, and Petty was impressed with how eloquent the No. 17 wheelman was after the difficult development.

“He never gets riled. He came at Tyler Reddick, but I’ve got to give him credit, he was restrained,” Petty said, regarding Buescher. “He stepped back. All of the emotion that he had. Frustration, confusion, hurt. It came out. He gave us a peek behind the curtain, of what drivers really think. He was hurt, because he thought, ‘Hey man, I raced you clean. We never race like that, what the heck just happened?’ There was the frustration of losing that race, and the confusion of, ‘Why did you race me like that Tyler? I don’t race you like that.’ Then, we go to the hurt part. The hurt part was, ‘I don’t have a sticker on my car. You’ve got one on your car, I don’t have one.’ That shows the fans how important these wins are, how critical these wins are, for these teams, and these drivers, to move into the playoffs.

“That was a peek behind the curtain, for me, of what drivers really think. So many times we see drivers that go over the line, that scream, that holler, that yell. You never know where they’re at. Chris Buescher showed you that peek, into the emotions of a driver, and what it really feels like to have a race taken away from you, when it’s right in your grasp.”

With that attitude, there’ll be a lot more wins for Chris Buescher in the NASCAR Cup Series. His star is truly beginning to turn, and the No. 17 will go a long way over the next couple of years if he sticks to his guns, it seems.