Scott Graves |

Veteran crew chief Scott Graves, a two-time NASCAR Xfinity Series Champion, returns for his third season at the helm of Chris Buescher’s No. 17 team in 2024. Graves, now in his ninth full season in the NASCAR Cup Series, led Buescher to the 2015 Xfinity Series Championship for Jack Roush, and is in his second stint with the organization. He returned to RFK in 2019 and led the No. 6 team for three seasons (2019-21), switched to the No. 17 team for the final races of the 2021 season, and has been in command since.

Graves led Buescher to a record year in 2023 as the team advanced to the Round of 8 in the NASCAR Playoffs, ultimately finishing seventh in the final points standings. He won three races atop the box with Buescher as the team rode a wave of momentum with three victories in a span of five weeks just prior to the start of the playoffs. Under Graves’ guidance, Buescher wiped clean career highs in every statistical category, but most notably finished second in the NCS in average finish, the best improvement of any team in the garage.

Graves and the No. 17 team were one of only six teams to win at least three times in 2023, and they made the most of return trips to tracks the circuit visits twice, netting 59 total positions on those nine tracks. The team continued its road course prowess, earning another five top-10s alone on those tracks, and at one point carried the longest top-10 streak of any team.

In 2022, Graves led Buescher to many superlatives, which at the time were all career highs: top-10s (10), laps led (194), top fives (3) and best average starting position (15.8). It was highlighted by the team’s victory at the Bristol Night Race in the fall where a two-tire call by Graves late paid off for what was Graves’ first Cup win.

In total, half of Buescher’s top-10 efforts came on road courses. Graves picked up his third career pole by leading the team to the fastest lap at Dover in the spring, one of the group’s 10 top-10 starting efforts overall. Together, Graves and the team also showed its versatility with top-10 finishes on multiple styles of tracks (Phoenix, Atlanta, Dover, Sonoma, Road America, Indy, Richmond, Watkins Glen, Bristol, ROVAL).

Graves finished the 2021 campaign with seven top-10s and three inside the top five. He and Newman tackled the series’ first introduction to dirt with a fifth-place run at Bristol Motor Speedway in the spring, and went on to better that result with a third-place finish in the summer Daytona race. His other top finishes include runs of seventh in Homestead, and a pair of 10^th-place finishes at Darlington in the spring, and the road course event in Indianapolis.

With five races left in the season Jack Roush switched his two teams including road crews, putting Graves back on the box to call the shots for Buescher, a familiar voice for both after having worked together for two years prior in Xfinity action. Graves and Buescher came right out of the gate strong in their first race together, running third at the Charlotte ROVAL, before going on to finish 12^th in the Kansas race and ninth a week later at Martinsville.

The 2020 season was a rollercoaster for all involved in NASCAR, but for Graves it included a horrifying crash for Newman in the season-opening Daytona 500, which resulted in a driver swap to Ross Chastain, who filled in for just the three races Newman would miss. Then, COVID-19 sidelined the sport for two months before Newman returned to the track when NASCAR did.

In all, Graves and Newman combined for two top-10s in 2020, including the ninth-place result in the season opener. The duo went on to finish inside the top-15 in four of the first six races back in NASCAR’s new-look schedule. Newman closed the year with a strong, sixth-place run in a chaotic Talladega finish.

Graves’ first season with the veteran driver saw the team earn its first playoff spot in 13 years in 2019. Graves led Newman to five top-10s in a six-race span from Michigan to Loudon, then officially locked up the team’s playoff spot with a dramatic eighth-place finish in the cutoff race at Indianapolis.

Throughout the 10-race playoff run, Newman put together an additional four top-10 finishes, including the near-win in Talladega where he was edged at the line by .007 seconds, the sixth-closest finish in NASCAR history and third-smallest margin ever at Talladega. Despite not advancing through to the Championship round, Newman and the team ended 2019 on a strong note, putting together a seventh-place result in Homestead.

Graves kicked off his debut season with Newman in style, surviving a flurry of accidents in the season opener to finish 14^th, despite a mangled car and right-front tire. The team’s performance improved from there, as they averaged a ninth-place finish in April with three-straight top-10s, setting the scene for the remainder of the season.

Graves spent the previous three seasons at Joe Gibbs Racing, where he guided Daniel Suárez to the 2016 NXS Championship, before moving to the Cup Series with Suárez in 2017 where he led the young driver to 10 top-10 finishes during his rookie campaign.

Graves initially joined RFR in 2006, working his way from team engineer through the Xfinity Series ranks, before eventually becoming a crew chief at the Cup Series level. After gaining engineering experience with drivers Matt Kenseth, Bobby Labonte, Erik Darnell and Carl Edwards, he was promoted to NXS crew chief in 2012, working with drivers Trevor Bayne, Edwards and Travis Pastrana.

That same season he was atop the pit box for three races with Ricky Stenhouse Jr., in the Cup Series, and remained with Stenhouse in the 2013 season leading him to Cup Series Rookie of the Year honors. He teamed up with Buescher in 2014, helping develop him into the 2015 NXS Champion. The duo would go on to win three races together and record 34 top-10 and 16 top-five results in a two-year span.

A Clifton Springs, N.Y., native, Graves earned his BS in Mechanical Engineering from Texas Tech in 1994. Graves and his wife, Dana, reside in Mooresville, N.C., with their daughter, Elise, while their son, Dalton, attends the University of Alabama.

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Scott Graves

Quick Facts

Birthday

Nov 07, 1974

Hometown

Clifton Spirngs, N.Y.

School

Texas Tech, 1994 (B.S. Mechanical Engineering)

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