Kurt Busch gets comeback amid brother's late agony (cont'd)

Kurt Busch has previously had issues with frustration over the erratic performance of his cars, but Saturday night -- despite a banging match with David Ragan on the backstretch, which brought out the sixth cautions -- Busch was never scored lower than 16th, and that was at Lap 20.

"We were real good early and then got a little damage in that wreck and it made the car a little tight," Tryson said. "We didn't have the speed we had earlier."

His driver never complained.

"It's just that better cars equal better results," Busch said. "If you're driving something that can't be driven to a top 20, that makes it frustrating because that's what our team wants to have for a finish. And now that we've got good cars it's easier to find those better finishes."

Indeed, Busch has 10 top-10 finishes in the first half of the season, compared to only four a year ago at this time. But he's not relaxing.

"It's just a keep-fighting attitude -- you can't give up. And at the time when we were running good, the right-front [tire] started shredding for an unknown reason," Busch said. "I got into the 6 [Ragan] car because everybody got four-wide and we were along for the ride. I went from OK to bad right there, but that yellow helped us work on our car.

"We came in and made some changes to make the car looser. It got us back in contention and it didn't happen too late in the day. You just have to let it hang out and let 'er rip. I was just hoping to hang on for a top 10. We got fifth [Saturday] and that was more than we expected."

Busch was just glad for overcoming any problems the team faced.

"I think we were better earlier [because] we could pull up to lead, but we just didn't have much at the end. It seemed like we dropped off a little bit of speed. A top-five finish is surprising due to the fact we had a little trouble midway through the race. We definitely had a strong car.

"By no means are we out of the woods. We've still got to run hard and get our team better for the Chase. We definitely needed a solid run [Saturday] just to give us that confidence we're going to be OK, but we still have some work to do heading down this stretch run."

Busch got out of his car and was pretty chipper, despite being sweat-drenched from head to toe. He was fast enough to lead a lap early, after he started fourth when qualifying was rained out. Tryson, despite smiling over the finish, was a little disappointed that his man didn't get his due.

"He's a drafting master and it's a shame we haven't won one yet with him," Tryson said. "But you know, when we look ahead to Talladega [in November], maybe we'll win the one that matters, in the Chase."

Talladega's wider, smoother venue would eliminate a couple aspects Busch and everyone else battled in a wild 400-miler.

"It was one of the more physical July races, with people bumping and banging a lot," Busch said. "But it was just slick out there and everybody's fighting their cars while at the same time trying to move forward out on the race track, and it makes it exciting.

"It is cool to race on such a slippery surface. It makes you feel like you're driving back in the old days, but we're nowhere near the men that they were. These cars are sliding quite a bit and you have to be a man to wrestle these things. Tony Stewart did the best job [Saturday] night."