Buescher ready for short track battle at Bristol

Chris Buescher's last visit to Bristol nearly ended in a trip to Victory Lane, and the 2015 XFINITY champ hopes history -- or at least most of it -- repeats itself this weekend at the Food City 500.

Buescher led toward the end of last season's second race at Bristol, but he ran out of fuel on the green-white-checkered finish and ended up in 11th place. This season's first trip to the short track will be in the #34 Love's Ford Fusion, and Buescher said he likes his options at Bristol.

"The current Bristol track conditions give us a couple options. We're still beatin' and bangin', and the cars still wind up looking like they ran your typical Bristol race. But there is a little bit more room to move around. You have different options now where you didn't have options before," he said.

Buescher is coming off a 28th-place finish at Texas Motor Speedway, a night filled with delays.

"It was a long night with the rain delays and everything early on, but once we got rolling, we were able to keep a pretty good pace. We started working on our Love's Travel Stops Ford and got it a lot closer as we went, so I'm really proud of the guys for that," Buescher said.

While Buescher loves going home to Texas, he also loves the track in Bristol, Tennessee. He added that it's a fan favorite as well.

"I think when you ask most guys, they'll say it's one of their favorite places to go racing. And for a lot of fans, it's a favorite place to go watch. It'll be exciting to go back there with Love's on board. We're looking forward to putting on a good show with them and having a really solid run with our Ford Fusion," he said.

Qualifying happens at 3:15 p.m. CDT on Friday with the race going green sometime just after NOON. The race will be broadcast on FOX with the pre-race broadcast starting at 11:30 a.m.

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