Kyle Busch was honest about his assessment on short tracks being their worst type of tracks that the Cup Series visits this season. He’s finished 8th (Phoenix), 14th (here), 32nd (Bristol Dirt), 21st (Martinsville), 21st (Dover) and 36th (Loudon) on tracks 1-mile in length or shorter this season.

So, despite starting on the front row, how long could he remain up front?

He faded to 12th at the end of the opening stage. However, his No. 8 Chevrolet rose to sixth by the end of the second stage and in the final 170 laps of the race, he kept coming to eventually coming home third in the end.

“We certainly fought hard on the long runs,” said Busch. “It was after about lap 50 that we really dropped off and fell off. But the first 50 laps, we could hang on and do OK. “

While it wasn’t a win, it has to feel good for them to end a drought to where Busch had finished 36th and 21st the last two weeks. Then to get his car dialed in on a short track, one that’s comparable to Phoenix later on in the season to determine the champion is a great sign.

“Really appreciate the No. 8 Chevy team, X World Wallet, Netspend, Chevrolet. We just had a really good day on pit road and just a solid effort,” Busch continued. “We needed something like this to be solid on the short-tracks and to kind of get our momentum back heading in the right direction.

“Happy with what we’ve got right here. Thank you to RCR, ECR especially. I ran the heck out of this engine today. I think I spent most of the race in fourth gear, where about everybody else was fifth gear. It just helped me the way I was driving and it got us a good, third-place finish.”