12 Questions with Chris Buescher

Jeff Gluck | USA TODAY Sports

Show Caption Hide Caption NASCAR season reaches halfway point USA TODAY Sports' Jeff Gluck on what we've learned, what's to come and the biggest surprises of the first half of the NASCAR season.

Our series of weekly NASCAR driver interviews continues with Chris Buescher, the Xfinity Series points leader who drives Roush Fenway Racing's No. 60 Ford. Buescher, 22, will next race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Saturday, where he finished fifth last year.

Q: If NASCAR allowed you to listen to music while you were racing, would you want to?

A: Yeah. I find myself singing anyway, just to get those songs out of my head.

Like the last song you heard before you got in the car?

That happens a lot. New songs that come out, things like that. At Iowa last year, the song "Dirt" by Florida Georgia Line was stuck in my head the whole race and I could not get it out. That was rough. (Laughs)

Would you rather listen to pump-you-up music or the kind of music that would relax you during a race?

Probably more on the side of getting pumped up. There will be no classical music played over my radio.

Q: Where did your first paycheck come from?

A: My first paycheck came from (Charlotte) Motor Speedway. I was racing in the Summer Shootout there when I was 13 or 14, and we got a race winnings paycheck for like $110 or something. It was like, "Man, this is cool – you can make money doing this! We need to go to the bank, we've got money to spend!" That was the first one I remember.

Q: Who is an autograph you got as a kid that seemed to be a big deal to you at the time?

A: Rusty Wallace and Mark Martin were two guys I followed a lot growing up, but I never was able to get Rusty's autograph – just being too young to get down in the pits and everything. Somebody got a Mark Martin autographed picture for me and put it in a frame, so that hung in my bedroom for a long time. That was pretty neat.

Away from the NASCAR side, I got Jeremy McGrath's autograph at a Supercross race back when I was still motocross racing. I was part of the halftime show at a Supercross race on the little 50cc KTM bikes.

Where was this?

That was in Texas at one of the stadiums, but I don't remember which one it was. I was probably 7 or 9, somewhere in there.

I know you've met Mark Martin because he worked with you guys last year, but did you ever get to meet Rusty?

I did get to meet Rusty and chatted with him a little bit. After I won the ARCA championship, we went to Talladega the next season and all of the ARCA champions get put into the Hall of Fame at Talladega. Well, it just so happened they were inducting Rusty at the same time. So I got to be up on stage with him and that was really cool for me.

Q: Where's a place you've never been that you'd like to go visit?

A: I'm a little bit of a homebody, and I've never left the country. I'd probably go somewhere tropical, maybe the Caribbean or something like that and hang out. Although I don't want to be at the beach right now – it seems like the beach is a sketchy place to be (with so many shark attacks in the news).

Maybe I'd go to Alaska or Canada and go fishing. My dad has been able to do that a couple times and he had a blast. I'd love to go fishing up there.

Q: Do people ever accuse you of being addicted to your phone?

A: Yeah. If you ask my girlfriend, I'm addicted to my phone.

Is she right?

Yeah, probably. (Grins) I spend too much time on it. It's not excessive, especially compared to a lot of people I know. But a lot of times at night, when you lay down and you're done for the day, you try to get caught up on a lot of social media stuff. I'm bad about not posting a lot, but I keep up with it a lot. I'm on there, I'm just a little quiet.

Q: If a genie promised you a championship in exchange for never being able to do your favorite hobby again, would you accept that offer?

A: Uh, no.

What would you not want to give up?

I do a lot of automotive stuff outside of racing. I've got a little shop and I like to work on my Fords in some downtime. I'm not willing to give all that up to have a promise of it. We can go get it without a genie and just have to work a little harder and not have that guarantee.

Q: What's your preferred method of dealing with an angry driver after a race?

A: Usually I like to let them calm down a little bit. You just try to smile and be calm about it. I don't get too bent out of shape in most circumstances. If I'm yelling and screaming and mad, it's pretty big. It takes a lot to get me to that point, so I try to be calm about it and look at it from more of a planned approach. If some agreement can't be reached after that, you've got to just let them cool off and come back to it.

Q: Do you ever get mistaken for another driver or celebrity?

A: I've never been mistaken for another driver. I've had some guys on the crew who have been asked for my autograph – the person thought they were me. They think Alex (Cunningham), our front-end mechanic, is me sometimes. I just told him to sign the stuff (with Buescher's name) – I don't want them to be turned away. (Laughs)

Q: If you had a time machine and you could travel to any year and race, where would you go?

A: My favorite finish was the Ricky Craven/Kurt Busch finish at Darlington (in 2003). Loved that finish, loved that era of race car. That was really the era I was starting to follow NASCAR and get into it. So that style of race car – which is actually just one generation before what I was running in ARCA – seemed like aero wasn't the key factor out there and those guys were running some big ol' front springs and they were able to hustle a race car pretty well. I think that would be a cool time to go back to and get in.

Q: Would you rather have the ability to fly or be invisible?

A: Fly. If you're invisible, the only advantage I see from that is you get to eavesdrop on a lot of people. And I'm not really one to worry too much about other people and what's going on. If you fly, you could get to that place you've never been to in a hurry.

Q: I've been asking each person to give me a question for the next interview. The last interview was with Daniel Suarez, and he wanted to know: Do you like to eat healthy before or after a race, or do you not change your diet?

A: I'm not too strict on it. I probably should be, honestly. Hydration is tough for me; I don't drink enough water. I probably tend to drink too much soda. So I need to do a better job of that. But I've done better this year of hydrating a little more, and I try to focus on grilled chicken and pasta on race weekends. I think that usually helps.

Q: And do you have a question I can ask the next driver? It's Aric Almirola.

A: I feel like I should ask him something about bacon (Almirola is sponsored by Smithfield). Does he ever get tired of eating bacon? Does he eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner? I'd really like to know that.

Q: Finally, how did this interview go on a scale of 1-10?

A: I'd say it went good. I'll give it a solid 9.

Follow Gluck on Twitter @jeff_gluck