Cook Out 400 highlights: Chris Buescher dominates at Richmond
The NASCAR Cup Series' July schedule continued Sunday with the Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway, and we had you covered with all the action from Chris Buescher's big win — his first win of the year and the third of his career!
NASCAR's top stars battled it out over 400 laps on the iconic 0.75-mile D-shaped oval asphalt speedway, known as "America's Premier Short Track", in Richmond, Virginia.
Richmond, also nicknamed the "Action Track," served as the backdrop for the 22nd race of the 2023 Cup Series season.
You can find a full list of winners so far this year, as well as the season's remaining schedule here.
Here are the top moments!
Green
Tyler Reddick, who checked in at ninth in our latest NASCAR power rankings, started on the pole at Richmond — his first pole since joining 23XI Racing. Four of Sunday's top-10 starters were searching for their first win of the season.
Battling early
Bubba Wallace overtook Kyle Busch for the third spot midway through the opening stage.
Meanwhile, Denny Hamlin began to close in on Reddick for the lead.
Power moves
Reddick secured the win in Stage 1 after leading all 70 of its laps, earning his fourth stage win of the year. Rounding out the top-five finishers in the opening stage were Wallace, Hamlin, Chase Elliott and Kevin Harvick, respectively.
Heating up
The green flag was back out at Lap 79, as the second stage got underway.
Lead change!
Wallace took the lead early in Stage 2, eventually opening it up to nearly 1.5 seconds on Reddick, and set a new personal-best for laps led in a race this season in the process.
Meanwhile, Reddick was getting heavy pressure from Brad Keselowski.
Zeroing in
There was some notable contact between Ty Gibbs and Elliott toward the end of the second stage.
Miscue
Wallace had a bit of trouble on pit road at the end of Stage 2, costing him precious seconds in an all-important race.
After that pit cycle, Keselowski took the lead, followed by Martin Truex Jr. in second and Michael McDowell in third.
Eyes on the prize
Keselowski went on to win Stage 2, followed by Buescher, Reddick, Wallace and Hamlin.
Elsewhere, Alex Bowman got into a tough battle with teammate Kyle Larson for the free pass position. Bowman prevailed and got back on the lead lap under caution.
Not how he drew it up
Keselowski had a troublesome pit stop early in the third stage that cost him his track position to Buescher.
Need for speed
With momentum on his side, Buescher took the lead from Truex with 94 laps to go at Richmond.
Coming through!
As Larson made his way through the field on fresh tires, he moved Hamlin out of his way smoothly and matter-of-factly.
Late-race restart
Noah Gragson got into Daniel Suárez to bring out a caution and a restart with less than 10 laps remaining.
Winner!
In the end, Buescher got a great launch on the restart and held off the rest of the field for the white flag.
He was followed by Hamlin, Busch, Joey Logano and Ryan Preece, which rounded on the top-five finishers.
PRE-RACE
Setting the stage
Ahead of the action, FOX Sports' Bob Pockrass broke down what and who to watch out for in Sunday's race.