On the one hand, Kyle Busch was frustrated he was unable to win the GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway after leading the field to green on the green-white-checkered finish. But on the other, it was nice to go home in one piece.

Busch, who led a race-high 48 laps, finished third Sunday. Having initially pulled away on the final restart, Busch was caught by Ricky Stenhouse Jr. going down the backstretch, and the No. 17 had just enough of a run – and help – to jump to the inside of Busch going into Turn 3.

From there it was a drag race to the white flag. Although Busch still had the advantage at that moment, it barely lasted until Turn 1 as the momentum of the inside lane was too much to overcome.

Welcome BACK to #VictoryLane, @roushfenway!

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“Just circumstances, that’s what it comes down to,” Busch said of the finish. “When you get your runs, who you get your runs from, and where you get them and how you make those runs into something that can be a positive for you. We just didn’t quite have those circumstances [go] our way.”

Unlike the Daytona 500 – when he exited early due to a crash – Busch not only completed the race but was able to control a lot of it with his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates. The power of the Toyotas and the ability to draft together has been a talking point around the garage for some time now, with Busch and Denny Hamlin demonstrating late in the race exactly why.

Hamlin led the race’s second-most laps at 43. However, Busch was the only Toyota near the front on the final two restarts.

“Everybody was all kind of mixed up – there was a Ford, there was Chevy, there was a Toyota, there was a Ford, there was a Chevy, there was a Ford, there was a Chevy – so, it was just all over the place,” Busch said.

“Certainly, myself and the 78 (Martin Truex Jr.) and the 11 (Hamlin), we all worked really well together today, and it was fun to have comradery today with teammates, but they weren’t there for us at the end.”
Even still, Busch hung as tough as he could with Stenhouse before the Roush Fenway Racing driver charged ahead for good.

“He got a push off of [Turn] 2, I guess, and he got to my back bumper and actually hit me,” Busch said. “I thought that was going to shoot my forward and he just turned left and passed me, after hitting me. So, pretty impressive.”