No wild celebration for 1st-time Sprint Cup winner Chris Buescher

A driver winning their first major NASCAR race is cause for merriment, reason to go and have a fun-filled night out on the town.

Not so if you’re Chris Buescher, the winner of Monday’s rain-shortened Pennsylvania 400 at Pocono Raceway. The 23-year-old rookie for Front Row Motorsports, in fact, has not even had a chance yet to celebrate his maiden Sprint Cup triumph. His week largely consisted of testing and media interviews.

“We left Pocono and didn’t celebrate the slightest bit,” Buescher said Friday at Watkins Glen International. “Got back to the bus and it was TP’d. We cleaned the toilet paper off after it got rained on, then we went to Utah for the next day and a half and then came back.”

Buescher headed west to work on his road racing skills in preparation for Sunday’s Cheez-it 355, the second of two road courses on the schedule. He was joined by Front Row teammate Landon Cassill, along with Ford teammates Ryan Blaney, Darrell Wallace Jr., Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Trevor Bayne.

Because of the whirlwind schedule Buescher said the accomplishment hasn’t really set in yet. He is the first rookie to win a Sprint Cup since Joey Logano in 2009, and moved six points shy of being eligible for NASCAR’s playoffs, a deficit he has five races to erase.

“It has been wild how everything has played out and I haven’t had time for it to settle in and feel like we won a race,” Buescher said. “It has been so crazy.

“I really haven’t had time to just relax. I haven’t really gotten to go see any of my friends that would usually be talking about it or pumped up about it. I imagine next week when we have that off weekend and going home to see some family we will be able to relax and really let it set in then.”