"This one's gonna hurt for a long time" - $5M-worth Chris Buescher ponders hair-width loss to Kyle Larson in Kansas

The dramatic finish at Kansas Speedway on Sunday (May 5) will stay in the mind of the NASCAR community and certainly in the mind of Chris Buescher.

RFK Racing driver Chris Buescher finished second behind Hendrick Motorsports driver Kyle Larson by a margin of 0.001 seconds, marking this finish as the closest ever in the history of the sport. The #17 Ford driver missed his maiden win of the season by a whisker in the photo finish at the AdventHealth 400 at Kansas Speedway.

In conversation with Dale Earnhardt Jr on the Dale Jr Download podcast, the $5 million worth (according to Celebrity Net Worth) Buescher talked about how he felt after crossing the checkered flag side-by-side with Larson. The 31-year-old said:

"I told everybody I thought I was going to throw up on the way to the airport afterwards." (47:38)

"I guess when I look back at it, if we had gone across the line and from the get-go thought we finished second, you would have been upset about it, you'd have been hurt about it, but it would have been OK," Buescher added.

The final lap of the race had a nail-biting finish where #5 Larson and #17 Buescher were in a door-to-door battle till the start-finish line. Buescher was initially announced as the winner in the pylon after this breathtaking last-lap battle. However, NASCAR reviewed the video footage of the finish and declared Larson as the winner in Kansas after several minutes.

"To see it all play out the way it did, it hurts, and you knowing the result now and understanding it. It's not going to make it easier, this one's going to hurt for a long time," Buescher said (48:30).

---

Chris Buescher's #17 team is gearing up for Darlington next weekend

The closest finish in NASCAR history by a margin of a thousandth of a second in Kansas witnessed Kyle Larson edge past Chris Buescher in the final stretch of the race.

Buescher talked about the aftermath of the race on Sunday (May 5) on the same podcast. He dominated the race by leading 53 laps and winning Stage Two. However, he finished second by the skin of his teeth. The #17 RFK Racing team told Buescher to grieve about the Kansas race for six days and then focus on the upcoming Darlington race on May 12.

"Some of our guys said just don't let it hurt any more than six days, let's just go to Darlington, win there, and we can put it behind us so we'll try to figure out how to make that one work," Buescher said. (48:49)

Chris Buescher sits at P11 in the overall Cup Series standings with two top-fives and six top-tens after 12 races in the 2024 NASCAR season.

Take a look at the dramatic photo finish by Kyle Larson and Chris Buescher: