Busch won the second race of the 2023 season at Auto Club Speedway, and was hoping to have a repeat performance in the second race of the 2024 season at Atlanta Motor Speedway
The Richard Childress Racing driver started off the weekend off right with a victory in the Truck Series race, driving for Spire Motorsports.
On the final lap of a dramatic Cup race, he was in contention again and sent it up the middle between Ryan Blaney and Daniel Suarez.
The three drivers drag-raced to the line in a finish for the ages, with Busch crossing third amongst the leading trio. He was only 0.004s behind runner-up Blaney and 0.007s behind race winner Suarez.
“Yeah, it’s frustrating," he said post-race. "I mean I hate it because I felt like we were one of the top-five cars today and had a good shot. The 12 [Blaney] was deservingly one of the faster cars, and with all the carnage, it took out some other guys early.
"I just got a little too far ahead of the 99 [Suarez] and he got a good side draft through the corner. I didn’t think the outside would prevail, but with the run down the frontstretch and the side draft, that is what hurt us. I was looking at the 12 and I swore I was ahead of the 12 at the line, but obviously my eyes are bad. Need more powerful glasses, I guess.”
It was by no means an easy race for. Busch. At one point, he was trapped a lap down after speeding on pitroad during green-flag stops. The third-place finish pushes him to the top of the championship standings, just 1pt clear of William Byron and Austin Cindric.
Speaking more on the dramatic finish, he said: "There towards the end, you don’t have that many alliances. All my friends kind of disintegrated and went away throughout the day. Bubba [Wallace] came to the rescue, and he was a huge part of our success there off of (turn) two and down the backstretch and getting a run. Getting alongside Blaney was a tight fit, but being able to make that move - if I didn’t make that move, then I push Blaney out too far through three and four and he wins."
Despite the difficult loss, he was still happy to see a fellow Chevy driver take the win in the end. "It's good to see Daniel get a win. We were helping each being Chevy team partners and working together there. Shows that when you do have friends and you can make alliances that they do seem to work, and that was a good part of today."
