AVONDALE, Ariz. -- It doesn't matter if you're a sports psychologist or just a sports fan, it seems the success Kurt Busch and Penske Racing crew chief Pat Tryson have had during this Chase has flown in the face of all reason.

The week before the Chase opener at New Hampshire, Tryson informed Busch and his teammates that he would leave them after this season, to go to work at Michael Waltrip Racing. Shortly after, Tryson was told that beginning the next week he would only be allowed in the shop one day a week -- for the Tuesday debriefings.

Rusty Wallace, who preceded Busch in Roger Penske's No. 2 car and is now a NASCAR commentator, said he was surprised the team could focus, never mind pulling it off to the point of winning last week at Texas in the eighth race of the Chase. They moved to fourth in the Chase, only 59 points out of third.

"What they've accomplished has been amazing," Wallace said. "It shows they've got a good team effort and a good engineering staff over there at Penske Racing, because they built a car Kurt didn't want to run this past weekend, and he won with it.

"But I was wrong, because at Dover I said, 'How can you only allow a crew chief in the shop part time and expect to win a championship?' I guess I was half-right because they're not going to win the championship, but they're winning races.

"And I didn't even think that was gonna happen because I thought there'd be too much fallout from Pat's decision and that Pat might lose interest -- but he didn't.

"He just told me they've got two races to go, he's going to work his [butt] off and go out on top, with two races to go and they're going to try to end up in Victory Lane two more times. Even though he's only allowed in the shop a limited time, he's still giving it his all."

To Busch and Tryson's credit, they completely played down any trace of emotion at achieving that victory, one of their greatest goals after the championship. In separate interviews after the Texas victory, they agreed it was business as usual.

"It really wasn't as big of a deal as everybody likes to write about," Busch said dismissively. "But that is the central focus for the 2 car right now. But in the end, Pat Tryson's committed to this deal, he enjoys working with me and we're going to ride this wave because we don't know what the future holds for both of us.

"We didn't want anything to be different, but we knew we'd have to handle it differently. But it takes focus to get it done and that's a pretty good statement for our team. It's easier to do that when engineering stepped up like they did [last] weekend, our motor department was solid and all the way around we had a smooth weekend you don't want to forget."

Busch then walked back into Texas' Victory Lane to finish shooting photos, saying over his shoulder, "You don't ever want to forget how all this is done."

"We're a little bit farther back than we'd have liked to have been," Tryson said. "If some stuff hadn't have happened [at Talladega] we'd be in pretty good shape, but those things happen and now we're just excited to win races.

"That's what it's all about, there are two more and we can try to win both of those. These guys are loyal guys and everybody wanted to win real bad. I knew none of those guys were going to give up on me and I know I wasn't going to give up on them and we were going to hang in there, because we're a pretty tight-knit group.

"It'll be a sad day at Homestead when I've got to leave, but everybody's got to do what's best for them, unfortunately."

Friday at Phoenix, Busch said he definitely didn't feel like their victory to any degree was an "I told you so" to anyone who doubted their ability to get it done.

"We don't feel like that, and I don't think we have to take that approach at all," Busch said. "The way that Pat and I mutually feel, with each other is it's the same as if we were still together, even after these next two races. So it's not like 'I told you so,' it's just that we didn't want [the split] to be a distraction with the crew chief leaving the team at the end of the year -- and that's all that's been written about.

"So in the end, you can say it's that, but we're just out here doing our job, working as hard as we can -- I still go back and kick myself a little bit for Talladega, with how we finished there."

If the 30th place earned at Talladega, thanks to a late accident, is removed from his Chase ledger, Busch has an average finish of 8.1. It's nowhere near the stunning 3.4 average Chase leader Jimmie Johnson has in his best seven Chase races, but it still gives Busch some satisfaction.

"If we would have finished better [at Talladega] we might be in a little more reasonable reach of the points lead, right now," Busch said of his 171-point deficit to Johnson with two races remaining. "So we need help, but we still need to run strong."

Busch, who won at Phoenix in 2005 and was third and second in his past two starts on the tricky mile oval, said with his history of racing Southwest Tour late models and the Truck Series before making his Cup debut in November 2000, "it feels like I've got more laps around here than any other track on the circuit, so it would be special to win here at Phoenix, just being close to home [Las Vegas] and with my relatives out here."

Wallace just said that, despite Tryson only spending one weekly meeting at the shop, what the Penske team had achieved proved the work at the track was most important.

"It goes to prove that you've got to build the cars at the shop, but man I'll tell you what -- you've got to make it happen at the race track," the 1989 Cup champion said. "To me, in my career 70 percent of it happened at the race track. Yeah, you've got to be prepared and you've got to have a good motor, but once you get it here you've got to get it all tuned up, you've got to get it handling right, you've got to have fast pit stops and the driver's got to drive it right.

"And all those things don't happen at the shop. The shop's very important, don't get me wrong, but [the track] is where all the stuff really happens."

Video
• Busch puts 2 car on front row at Phoenix