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Regardless of the outcome, Kyle Busch says his performance in the season-opening Daytona 500 was never going to be a good indicator of whether his team was back on track after a disappointing finish to 2008.

Based on finishing position alone, that's probably a good thing.

Busch heads into Sunday's Auto Club 500 fresh off a 41st-place finish in the 500, but that was not indicative of how he was running in the race. Until he became an unwitting victim of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s on-track battle with Brian Vickers - which collected nine cars - Busch had led a race-high 88 laps.

In Busch's eyes, not even a victory would foreshadow the rest of the season.

"Not really. Not here in Daytona," Busch explained. "You know, the statement's more so when we get to California, Vegas, Atlanta, that we'll be a force to be reckoned with.

"(At) Daytona, we knew we'd run strong. We felt confident about that. Our restrictor-plate package is good. Toyota has done a wonderful job for us. Mark (Cronquist) in the engine shop has done a flawless job."

Speedweeks continue to show Busch is a contender in any series he enters.

He was battling for the lead on the last lap in the series openers for both the Truck and Nationwide series, coming up short in attempts for last-lap passes of the leaders. He still finished second and fourth, respectively.

Busch won one of the two Gatorade Duel races last Thursday and then ran very well in the 500 until his accident. But it was on NASCAR's more routine tracks - the short tracks, 1.5- and 2-mile tracks where he ran up most of his eight victories last season - where his prospects for 2009 will become more clear.

"I really don't foresee us winning eight races this year. If we happen to contend for wins and win some races, that's great," Busch said. "We'd like to get about five wins or so, but the competition has caught up so much.

"Carl (Edwards) and Jimmie (Johnson) are so strong that right now you've got to look at those guys as being the ones who are going to win the most races."

For the first 26 races of 2008, Busch and his Joe Gibbs Racing team could seemingly do no wrong. He won an virtually every type of track in his first season with the team and amassed a large points lead that gave him the No. 1 seed heading into the final 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup.

That's when back luck and car problems started to take their toll. Busch didn't win in the Chase and finished a disappointing 10th in the standings.

Asked if there were concrete items that could be fixed in preparation for this season's championship run, Busch replied, "There are things (the team) can learn to turn it around - not have sway-bar arms come off, not have blown engines the second race into the Chase, not have carburetor issues the third race into the Chase.

"There's really nothing I could have done any differently. If it was all my fault I could work on it, I could fix something. But I have no idea what went wrong (with the cars)."

In any case, a clearer picture of Busch's prospects should emerge this weekend.[[In-content Ad]]

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