Race Weekend Central

James Buescher Says Phoenix Racing Will Run Rest of 2010 season

James Buescher is not worried about his future with the No. 1 Phoenix Racing Nationwide Series team.

FOX Sports broke news last week that James Finch’s Phoenix Racing team, a longtime NASCAR fixture, is up for sale. The 20-year-old Buescher tells Frontstretch that this news has no effect on the team’s operations this season.

“I don’t have any doubt,” said Buescher at Talladega Sunday morning, in regard to whether or not the No. 1 Chevy will complete the rest of the season. “We’re here through Homestead. James Finch, at the beginning of the year, told me we’re running through Homestead, then we lost Miccosukee [an Indian-run casino and resort and longtime Phoenix Racing sponsor in both the Cup and Nationwide series]. He still says we are running through Homestead. If he says he is going to do something, then he is going to do it. I really don’t have any doubt of that.”

Buescher’s statement didn’t waver, even when posed with the possibility of someone having different feeling about running an unsponsored car, if they bought the operation midseason.

“He won’t sell it during the year. He’s running it through the end of the year. I’ll be in the [No.] 1 car all year.”

Buescher, who sits 20th in NNS points with one top-10 and four DNFs, also says that there have been no talks about him getting any seat time in Finch’s No. 09 Sprint Cup Series ride. The No. 09 has returned to start-and-park status after sponsor Miccosukee’s departure and has seen driver Aric Almirola leave the team. Mike Bliss drove the No. 09 Chevy to a 10th-place finish at Talladega Sunday in the same car the Brad Keselowski won with in the same race in 2009.

Phoenix Racing also campaigns a part-time ARCA Racing Series ride that Buescher has driven that Bill Elliott Racing developmental driver Casey Roderick finished second at Rockingham in last year and scored a pole in at the road course in Palm Beach, Fla. this year. Roderick is scheduled to run the No. 51 Monolith Companies car, which is built in Phoenix Racing’s shop but taken to the track by Bill Elliott Racing, in several races later this season. An official with Bill Elliott Racing says that those races are contractual and will still occur as planned.

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