Rogers' debut with Busch flames out on a fuel call (cont'd)

"We're disappointed -- this Toyota deserved to be in Victory Lane," Rogers said. "I thought we had one of the best cars throughout the entire race, but it just didn't work out that way. We were a little short on fuel.

"We had Kyle back down and we thought we'd saved enough fuel -- we missed the numbers somewhere or we didn't get it full or we didn't pick up all we could pick up. I can't explain why we ran out. We'll take it back to the shop and have a look at it."

Joe Gibbs Racing president, J.D. Gibbs, had to balance Busch's team's disappointment with the delight at teammate Denny Hamlin's second place, as Hamlin continues to reinforce his return to the series' top 10.

The performance left Gibbs with a lot of hope for the two races left this season, at Phoenix and Homestead.

"It was pretty good -- a dominant race [Sunday], and that's the encouraging thing to take away," Gibbs said. "That's going to be a good team and I look forward to the future -- it's just painful to be that close. If you were running fourth, ah, you're running fourth -- you're running well.

"But when you're running first, that's what hurts [because] it was so close. But that's part of life and I think it's encouraging for Dave and Kyle, when they kind of look back and know they'll be a good team, for years to come."

Gibbs acknowledged the importance of how well the pairing of Busch and Rogers performed right out of the box. Busch had led no more than four laps -- and only eight total -- in his eight previous races.

"Really, for the 18, that's the best we've run in a long time," Gibbs said. "So it's discouraging because it would have been a great story for Dave to win in his first time [with the team], because they were good. A caution anywhere in there, you pit, you go out and you win the race.

"That's just part of the deal, you've got to plan for it and that's part of Kyle learning Dave and Dave learning Kyle a little bit."

And Busch's former crew chief, Steve Addington, with whom Busch won 12 races in the past two seasons, provided some final perspective for his teammates' dismay. Addington was on the disappointed end of the three races Busch led the most laps in this season but lost: the Daytona 500, Aaron's 499 and Coke 600.

"It's disheartening for Joe Gibbs Racing to have good race cars and come up short like that," Addington said. "I'm sure it's disappointing for everyone over there on the 18 car but that's part of this racing. Everybody had to do their own deal and [Busch] was backing down trying to save fuel -- it just wasn't enough."

Addington was in full support of his teammate and his former team.

"He did a good job this weekend and they went for it -- that's it," Addington said of Rogers. "All those guys worked really hard to have a good race car so that was cool to see the 18 back out front because we should have won the first race here, so I was pretty sure they'd come here and run good."

Rogers summed up by saying there was no discussion between he and Busch about the call.

"We were committed to staying out," Rogers said. "Like I said before, we're out of the Chase and we're not points racing -- we didn't really have anything to lose. If we would have pitted, the 2 car [Kurt Busch] certainly would have beat us. Our only shot at winning it was to stay out, so we gambled.

"Sometimes when you gamble you lose -- we lost [Sunday], but we had a really fast car. I told [Kyle] my plan was to stay out and he trusted me and it didn't work. You're going to have days like this. It's discouraging for Kyle, it's hard for myself."

Knowing the circumstances he came to this position under, Rogers didn't back off his decision.

"Welcome to the club -- hah," Rogers said. "You know, [pressure] is part of the game -- it's what you sign up for. Someone's got to do that job and I raised my hand and said I wanted to do it -- and here I am."