MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Although his older brother's frustration following last Sunday's Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway seemed to indicate otherwise, Kyle Busch on Friday scoffed at the idea that Jimmie Johnson is inside his or any of the other Sprint Cup drivers' heads.

"I'm only as good as my equipment will let me go," Busch said. "Everybody has been asking me why I haven't been running good. Is it my head? Is it because I'm running a truck team? Is it this, is it that? I'm driving my butt off every single week.

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Just in his [Kurt Busch's] comment alone? Absolutely, we're in his head

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-- JIMMIE JOHNSON

"I can only go as fast as my car will let me go. Jimmie Johnson's not going to beat me because he's in my head. He's going to beat me because he's got a better car than I do."

Johnson, the four-time defending Cup champion, has won three of the first five races of the 2010 season heading into this Sunday's Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway. After Johnson passed Kurt Busch late in the race, relegating Busch to a third-place finish when he had led the most laps on the day, Busch became visibly frustrated on pit road afterward.

Johnson said Friday that he was in Victory Lane, celebrating, when he heard Busch proclaim over the public-address system that he would have preferred losing to "anyone but the 48" and making known his general exasperation with being unable to keep up with Johnson's team. Busch even went on to note that while he usually is terrible at Martinsville, Johnson "probably will win there again."

It played right into Johnson's greedy hands.

"It made me smile. I was getting ready to do my victory interview and I could hear that," Johnson said, who made it clear he isn't satisfied merely with 50 career victories and the four championships in a row. "Man, I've always wanted to be that guy that frustrated the field, frustrated the garage area. I was fortunate enough to watch [Dale] Earnhardt do that during his run and [Jeff] Gordon during his.

"And you ask any driver in the garage area. They want to be in my shoes. They want to be that guy that is referenced when someone loses and they say 'anyone but.' They all want to be in my shoes. So I'm pretty excited to be here."

Jeff Burton said Kyle Busch can deny that Johnson is playing effective mind games with the rest of the Sprint Cup field, but the veteran driver is not sure he's buying what the younger Busch is selling.

"Well when you win four championships and three of the first [five] races or whatever he's done, and you're not in somebody's head, then nobody's paying attention. I think everybody's different, and everybody's affected by things differently," Burton said. "For me, if you're not paying attention to what they're doing and understanding that they're the guys you need to beat if you want to win a championship, then you're not a fast learner.

"You can be in denial about where they are and what they're doing if you like -- but if you want to understand what you're up against, then you need to understand it. Now if that's being in your head or not, I don't know. They certainly have had the success that no one else has had over the past four years, and that no one has had at the first part of this year. If they're in peoples' heads, they're in them because of their success -- not because of what they're saying."

It could merely be a matter of interpretation, according to Kyle Busch.

"To me, I think it's more of a media game where you feel like drivers get in other drivers' heads. [Former driver] Darrell [Waltrip] says he was the best at doing it when he was driving ... smack-talking, whatever," Busch said. "To me, I don't read anything, I don't hear anything. I never have a driver smack-talk me to my face. They always like to do it here [in the media center]."

Tony Stewart, a two-time former champion, said he definitely has attempted to play mind games with some drivers, and succeeded. But as Burton pointed out, everyone is different.

"There is a group of guys where it's easy to get in their heads, and there is a group of guys where it's not so easy and you can't get into their heads no matter what you do," Stewart said. "But there definitely are some guys that you can do that to."

Johnson obviously thinks he is succeeding in his fair share of heads.

"Just in his [Kurt Busch's] comment alone? Absolutely, we're in his head," Johnson said. "Maybe not everyone's. Everybody deals with things differently. But if you go through and read any press remarks or interviews, if someone talks that they're not worried about us, it's already in there -- which is great."