Kyle Busch's third place finish was definitely not an easy Sunday drive. The No. 18 M&M's Toyota was fast off the bat was one of the cars to beat for much of the early stages of Sunday's Coca-Cola 600. However, early troubles with a flat tire and then issues with a failing battery made for a long, hard fought evening for the Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) driver and crew.

"Just a long night," a tired Busch said following the event. "But overall we came through a lot of adversity."

After leading the first 33 laps of Sunday's 600-mile event, Busch began to experience battery problems. Busch was forced to switch to his back-up battery and began cutting off all the fans and blowers.

Busch's problems did not end there, however, as the 23-year-old made an unscheduled stop on Lap 150 for what he thought was a flat right front tire. After a quick change, the No. 18 Toyota Camry was back on track in 19th-spot, one lap down.

"Thought we had a right front tire going down," Busch explained. "We got caught a lap down. Made our lap back on the racetrack. Then the caution came out. We were able to circle back around. Had to fight the battery problem the whole night. No fans, no blowers, no nothing. Kind of made for a long race."

From then on out the JGR driver methodically made his way back through the field. By Lap 180, Busch had broken into the top-10 and by halfway was running 4th.

Losing the lead to Dale Earnhardt Jr. on Lap 259, Busch's problems began to get worse. The No. 18 began to slip back and Busch was forced to once again shut off all fans. The driver known as "Rowdy" radioed his crew on Lap 291 saying the battery had "started skipping - getting worse. It's bad. I need a caution bad."

Luck was on his side Sunday evening, as the 8th caution of the day came on Lap 297, when Dale Earnhardt Jr. hit the wall collecting J.J. Yeley. This gave Steve Addington and the entire M&M's crew the opportunity they needed to change batteries.

Making the changes on pit road, Busch came over the radio and reassured his crew, "Everybody take a deep breath, we alright, got 90 laps to go."

Busch restarted the race in 20th-spot with just under a third of the race remaining. It didn't take Busch long to get back to the front, as the youngster took the lead from former teammate Jimmie Johnson on Lap 347.

With 40 laps remaining, Kasey Kahne's No. 9 Dodge turned on the afterburners and took the lead back from Busch. The JGR driver fell  one more spot to teammate Tony Stewart, before the leaders began stopping for their final gas-and-go stops.

Following the stops, Busch was running 4th and racing Carl Edwards, who had gambled on fuel and stayed out. A hard charging Greg Biffle entered the fray for the 3rd and 4th spots as the laps wound down. Edwards ran out of gas and race leader Tony Stewart blew a right front tire, sending Biffle into second and Busch into third.

"Just felt confident in our stuff that we could come back up through there," Busch said. "Just had to be patient, you know, not go up there and try too hard to get up to the front too quick and wreck your stuff. I've done that here before. Knowing that there was still I think 90 laps to go, so I figured 90 laps, if we couldn't get it done in that time, then we didn't deserve it."

The third-place finish marked the ninth top-10 finish of 2008 for Busch and helped extend his points lead over second-place Jeff Burton.