The race was sent into a two-lap overtime following a horrific crash involving Ryan Preece that resulted in the Stewart-Haas driver being sent to hospital, with Kevin Harvick in the lead on his final outing at the superspeedway.
But Harvick had Buescher and RFK team-mate Brad Keselowski behind him, and a push from the 2012 Cup champion moved Buescher ahead of Harvick shortly after the restart. He then held off Keselowski by 0.098 seconds at the checkered flag to claim his third win in the past five races.
It’s the first 1-2 finish for RFK Racing since the 2014 season and Buescher will enter the 2023 playoff field as the fourth seed.
The 30-year-old said the result was “as much Brad’s win as ours right there”.
“That was the right help, aggressive, sticking with us,” he said.
”I was waiting for him to do something there coming to the finish. I figured we’d be side by side. Looked like it stalled out a little behind there.
“Just so thankful for Brad for all those pushes at the right time. Found each other here and there throughout the race, lost each other, and got back on when it counted.”
Aric Almirola ended up third ahead of Chase Elliott, for whom fourth place was not enough to continue his unbroken streak of playoff appearances.
Joey Logano rounded out the top five ahead of Alex Bowman and Kyle Busch, as Harvick dropped to ninth behind William Byron. Corey LaJoie completed the top 10.
Race winner Chris Buescher, RFK Racing, Ford Mustang
Photo by: Nigel Kinrade / NKP / Motorsport Images
A repeat winner at Daytona meant Bubba Wallace clinched the 16th and final spot in the playoffs based on points and thanks to his 12th place finish.
Joining Buescher and Wallace in the playoffs are regular season champion Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin, Byron, Christopher Bell, Keselowski, Kyle Larson, Harvick, Busch, Ross Chastain, Logano, Tyler Reddick, Ryan Blaney, Michael McDowell and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Several cars were eliminated during the ‘Big One’ on the final lap of Stage 2. After Truex had beaten Bell in a caution-free Stage 1, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver turned Ty Gibbs into leader Blaney – who got turned into the outside wall to trigger the pileup that collected more than 16 cars.
Keselowski therefore inherited the Stage 2 win, but didn’t emerge as a factor in Stage 3 until after the final round of green flag stops as Harvick led the field with four laps to go.
That was when Preece, running in the middle of the pack, was turned by Erik Jones and his car barrel-rolled several times in the grass down the backstretch before it came to a stop on its wheels.
It took several minutes but Preece emerged from the car on his own feet. He was transported to the infield care centre on a stretcher for precautionary reasons, then taken by ambulance to Halifax Medical Center for further evaluation.
Stewart-Haas Racing’s vice president of competition, Greg Zipadelli, said that Preece was “alert but shaken up” before being taken to the hospital.