LONG POND - For the first time all year, Chris Buescher was right where he needed to be.

As inclement weather hit Pocono Raceway Monday afternoon, Buescher found himself at the front of the field when NASCAR called the Sprint Cup Series Pennsylvania 400 after 138 of the scheduled 160 laps and declared the 23-year-old the winner."That's pretty awesome. Wild circumstances here at Pocono," Buescher said of winning the race, which was postponed from Sunday. "This is gonna change our whole year right here, so this puts us in a good situation where we had a good day. It was a lot of fun."The guys really toughed it out. We got a flat tire, but we're headed in the right direction now, so that will help in points. We got a win here, so we'll take it any way we can get it."The victory was the first of Buescher's career and the second for Front Row Motorsports, which also won at Talladega with David Ragan in 2013.Brad Keselowski was second, while Regan Smith finished third. A pair of Stewart-Haas Racing drivers rounded out the top-five, with points leader Kevin Harvick finishing fourth and teammate Tony Stewart fifth.Buescher beat the odds - and the weather - with an under-funded team, by making his fuel last and overcoming a near miss on the track and a penalty on pit road.After a restart on lap 91, Buescher suffered a flat tire trying to avoid a near-wreck in front of him, forcing the No. 34 Dockside Logistics Ford Fusion to pit road under green."It actually cut the tire down coming off of (turn) three as we were hitting pit road, so we got really lucky there," Buescher said of the incident. "For once this season we got lucky and were able to hit pit road and then I messed up our luck and I sped off pit road, so I've got to get a little bit smoother in situations where things don't go our way. I've got to calm down a little bit and make them a little bit easier on everybody back on the box."After serving a pass-thru penalty for speeding, Buescher's fortunes quickly turned when the caution came out on lap 106 for an accident involving Joey Logano, who led a race-high 38 laps, and fellow rookie Chase Elliott. Buescher pitted during the caution on lap 107 and was the beneficiary on the lap 110 restart and regained the lap he previously lost."A lot of things worked out really well there at the end and some things I thought were headed in the wrong direction, when I cut a rear tire down just trying to avoid a wreck, and we ended up in a good spot there at the end," Buescher said. "Bob (Osborne, crew chief) made a good call to hold out on the weather and make sure that we could run as far out on fuel as we possibly could and it worked out really well. The weather got here just when we needed it to."As race leaders hit pit road under green in anticipation of the race going the full distance, Buescher stayed out. Fog slowly engulfed the track and NASCAR threw the caution on lap 133 before bringing the cars to pit road on lap 138 and stopping the race due to poor visibility.After a wait of about an hour under the red flag, NASCAR made the race official with the threat of severe weather nearby.Though Keselowski, who has four wins this season, was hoping to get the race restarted, he was happy to see Buescher pick up his first."I just told him, you know, if I couldn't win, it was cool to see him win, and I told him, I can only imagine what's going through your head right now," Keselowski said of his conversation with Buescher. "And I think he was excited, but he's kind of the humble, quiet, excited kind of guy."The third place was Smith's best since an eighth-place result at the season-opening Daytona 500 in February.NOT SO HAPPY RETURNS … Jeff Gordon, who temporarily came out of retirement last week at Indianapolis for an ailing Dale Earnhardt Jr. and completed his second race in the No. 88 car Monday, finished 27th. Gordon leads all active drivers with six wins at Pocono. There has been no update on when Earnhardt, suffering from concussion-like symptoms, will be back in the car. NASCAR heads to the road course at Watkins Glen this weekend.POINTS … Harvick leads the point standings, 22 points ahead of Brad Keselowski. Despite his victory, Buescher hasn't clinched his spot in the Chase. Drivers with a win qualify for the Chase, but only if they're in the top-30 in the points standings. Buescher is not. He entered the race 41 points behind David Ragan for 30th place and he's now six points behind Ragan.LONG TIME COMING … Buescher, the 2015 XFINITY Series champion, is the first Sunoco Rookie of the Year contender to win a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race since Logano did so at New Hampshire in 2009.MILESTONE START … After Aric Almirola made his first Sprint Cup start in 2007, he endured several years of only part-time rides with various teams. It took time, but Almirola, now in his fifth full season with Richard Petty Motorsports, made his 200th career start Monday at Pocono. Almirola finished 39th Monday after making contact with Jeb Burton off Turn 3 early in the race.