Kyle Busch says he just needed a change of luck

Busch failed to make the Chase last year and his difficult run continued in 2013 with engine problems intruding at Daytona and Phoenix in particular.

But he rebounded by winning the Fontana event after fighting for the lead all afternoon.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver said he was no more competitive in California than he had been all season.

"We started out the season and we were running well at Daytona, we had a little issue there, and then [at] Phoenix we had to start in the back," he said.

"Then we go to Vegas and run up front, we lead some laps, and we just didn't have a good long-run car.

"Then last week at Bristol we had a good car, we sped on pit road and got back in traffic, never really made our way back up to the front on good tyres.

"We finally had a little bit of luck on our side [at Fontana] that we didn't have all last year and it seemed like we weren't quite having this year.

"But we've had some good runs and some strong runs, it's just you've got to keep working, you've got to keep digging in.

"We talked a lot in the last few weeks about what we can do to try to help each other and put our programme on the map where we're a bigger force to be reckoned with."

Crew chief Dave Rogers said his team had just needed to make sure its pace turned into results.

"We strung off a lot of top fives, we contended for wins, we just didn't capitalise on them," he said.

"But we picked up right where we left off. We're running top five week in, week out. Unfortunately we also picked up right where we left off by running top five and not capitalising.

"[At Fontana] we finally capitalised on it due to some great driving by Kyle."