This past Tuesday, a number of NASCAR drivers who drove for Jack Roush (now Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing) came together in Concord, North Carolina, to celebrate the life and career of the legendary NASCAR (and other series) team owner. Among those in attendance were NASCAR Hall of Famers Mark Martin and Carl Edwards, David Ragan, driver turned broadcaster Jamie McMurray, and current Cup driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

Roush, who turns 84 next month, is one of the most successful team owners not just in NASCAR but in several forms of auto racing. When it comes to his drivers, the reason so many attended the event was for the same reason Roush remained committed to them during their tenures behind the wheel for him: respect.

Jack respected them, and they will always respect him, even those who eventually left the Roush camp to race for other teams.

Chris Buescher is among the most ardent supporters of Roush. The reason is simple: if Roush had not believed in Buescher’s ability early in his career, Buescher likely would not have gone on to a lengthy career in NASCAR, both in the Cup and O’Reilly Auto Parts series.

“I could talk way too long on this subject,” Buescher said during a media teleconference on Wednesday. “I’ve been under this roof in these four walls at RFK for over half of my life at this point. I got here as I was almost 16 years old because I had a handful of people that took chances, believed in me and pushed me to get to this point.

“There was Ken Ragan, David Ragan’s family took me in and really helped me kind of find my way in North Carolina and pushed me in the door here to meet Jack Roush and Robbie Reiser, who kind of looked through past results.

“I didn’t have the credentials to walk in these doors. I’m not gonna lie about that. I walked in and said, ‘Look, I’m willing to put in the work to get there and figure out how to win races here.’ And that was something ultimately that Jack signed off on and said, ‘Yeah, I want to do this and I want to take that chance.’”

It would not be a surprise to know Buescher considers Roush as a quasi-father figure. Not only did Roush have respect for Buescher and his talent, but he gladly took the young Texas native under his wings, essentially starting from the ground up and mentored him as he progressed through NASCAR’s various tiers, from Trucks to O’Reilly to Cup.

It’s the same kind of thing that Roush did numerous times during his 60-plus-year career in racing, with many of those same drivers flying in Tuesday to attend the ceremony honoring the so-called Cat in the Hat.

In a sense, driving for Roush or one of his subsidiaries, like the Roulo Brothers was essentially like attending a driving academy. In fact, young drivers who were fortunate to be chosen by Roush to drive for him oftentimes called their tenures as ‘Roush Bootcamp.’

Roush not only taught his young charges how to race, but more importantly, how to race smartly, how to turn bad habits into good, to represent themselves as well as Jack and his organization with professionalism, and learned how to react even at times when Jack had to instill a dose of tough love if a driver balked at Roush’s directions.

“It got to the point where we got through ARCA, some of the driver development programs with the Roulo Brothers up north, with working in the shop here,” Buescher recalled. “I remember 2013 I had seven races planned in an Xfinity car here and kind of laughing at Jack’s bootcamp now. It used to always be for those that wrecked race cars and tore stuff up and they got sent to the shop to figure out how to work on them. I had to go beg to go work in the shop because I was gonna be bored at seven races, so I’ve seen this place through a lot of different eras.

“I’ve seen it from all the different departments. I’ve seen the amount of people that have been here for 22, 25, 30 years under Jack’s guidance. I’ve seen it evolve and get back to the point now where we are in the hunt to win races. We fell a little short last year, but for many years I’ve been able to win races consistently, not as many as we want, but getting back to a point where everytime you see Jack he’s smiling, he’s cutting up, he’s telling stories and that’s really rewarding to be a part of it at this point, personally and selfishly.”

While Roush remains involved in RFK’s operations, with advancing age he’s slowed down somewhat and also endured some health issues that have made him cut back on some of his responsibilities in recent years, particularly since Keselowski left Team Penske to drive for Roush, with the deal sweetened even more when Roush also anointed Keselowski as a part-owner of RFK in 2022, thus assuring RFK and Roush’s legacy will be in good hands for several more decades to come when Keselowski becomes the primary leader of the organization in the coming years.

As did the other attendees, Buescher, driver of the No. 17 RFK Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse, enjoyed the stories – both serious and funny – about Jack’s legacy.

“Listening to the stories that everybody had with Jack and realizing that not a single driver came in these walls with a very storied background or a whole lot of credentials either,” Buescher said. “Jack was a firm believer in developing people. That’s evident in the drivers that ultimately have become Hall of Famers of our sport, that have all been able to win races at the top level of NASCAR all came in these doors here with Jack willing to take a chance and put in the development.

“You don’t see that everywhere. That’s not the story of any other team in the garage. That means something. That’s special to Jack’s legacy. That’s special to me personally. It was special to hear those stories from all of those drivers that had the same story. To hear Mark Martin tell that in the same way that I just did about himself, knowing that Mark Martin was the driver that I looked up to as a kid was really special.

“It was neat to see Jack. I think he really enjoyed it. He was smiling the whole time. It was a really good time and what was an hour lunch was very soon over two hours of a gathering for everybody in the shop. I think we got to really get a great appreciation for what Jack has done for our sport as a very broad overreaching whole, and also for all of us as drivers and people that have worked here their entire careers. It was really neat, it was very interesting. It was fun to hear stories. He’s a special guy and has taken very good care of a lot of people through the years.”

Buescher is hoping to pick up the momentum he gained from this past Sunday’s sixth-place finish at Las Vegas and continue on in this Sunday’s race at Darlington. He’s never won at the Lady In Black, but has a career-best top three finish and six other top 10 showings in 17 starts on the 1.366-mile egg-shaped oval. He comes into Sunday’s race having strong showings in his last two race at Darlington: sixth in this race last season and 10 in last fall’s Southern 500.

Buescher is currently ninth in the Cup standings, while Keselowski is 12th and Preece is 13th.

“We’re not completely where we want to be, but it was a solid first real mile-and-a-half (Las Vegas) to get our bearings about us and understand where we feel like we’re sitting at, and I felt like it was strong,” Buescher said. “To tackle the Darlington side of it, we’ve got a lot more questions than answers right now. 

“It’s the shorter Darlington race (400 miles vs. the Southern’s 500-mile event later this year), but, that being said, it’s still gonna present a lot of challenges that Darlington has come to present all on its own, and now we’re tacking on the horsepower, the less downforce, and the higher falloff tires, so lots of excitement going into this one, lots of hope to see some really unique, good racing.”

Heading into Sunday’s race at Darlington, where Roush’s teams have only six career Cup wins over the years, overall his teams and drivers have made 4,151 Cup starts for Roush, with two championships (Matt Kenseth in 2003 and Kurt Busch in 2004), 143 total wins, 811 top five and 1,523 top ten finishes.

Never wavering in his six decades of loyalty to the Ford brand and its subsidiaries, Roush admittedly has a Who’s Who of drivers who’ve raced for him, including Mark Martin, Jeff Burton, Johnny Benson, Kevin Lepage, Kenseth, Busch, Ryan Newman, Edwards, Jamie McMurray, David Ragan, Stenhouse, Trevor Bayne and his current three driver lineup of Keselowski, Buescher and Ryan Preece, as well as the late Greg Biffle.

Speaking of Biffle, all three of the RFK Cup cars will carry special paint schemes and markings honoring Biffle, who was killed along with his wife, two children, and three others in a plane crash in Statesville, North Carolina, on December 18.

“We have the three Biffle memorial paint schemes or throwbacks if you want to call them that,” Buescher said. “For all of our cars to be able to do that and for Fifth Third Bank to be open and allowing us to take their branding and turn it into a remembrance for the Biffle family altogether is truly special for us.

“We certainly want to go make big things happen for everybody. It’s a pretty neat opportunity for all three of our RFK drivers to be able to do this and carry Biffle with us.”