While Jimmie Johnson and team owner Rick Hendrick celebrated their victory at Martinsville on Sunday afternoon, a number of other drivers were just glad the day was finally over. 

The winners the three previous weekends, the Busch brothers did not fare well at Martinsville.

For Kyle Busch the day started out strong after rolling off from the fourth-spot. Racing up front with the leaders in the early stages of the race, Busch looked as if he would once again be a threat for the win.  However, the driver of the No. 18 M&M’s Toyota fought the handling of his car throughout much of the early going.

Certainly not his best track (in eight previous starts Busch had three top-5s, four top-10s, no wins and finished outside the top-25 in both events in 2008), Busch began to get frustrated battling his ill-handling car and rookie Scott Speed who had stayed out and was racing with the leaders. Making his move under Speed going into Turn 3, the rear end of Busch’s Toyota slid out from under him, spinning both cars. Speed was sent hard into the outside wall, while Busch was able to continue on.

“Tell the 82 there was no reason he deserved that,” Busch said over the radio, adding, “I’m just an idiot.”

From then on, Busch’s day simply got worse. The kid they call ‘Rowdy’ was mired deep in traffic, received a pit road speeding penalty, blew a right front tire under green and ended the day 24^th two laps down.

"We just couldn't get anything to go right with our M&M's Toyota today" a disappointed Busch explained. "All we could do after having the tire go down was to gain as many spots as possible and learn what we could for when we come back here in October during the Chase."

Older brother Kurt’s day started off in similar fashion to his younger brother. A strong car in the early going, the driver of the No. 2 Miller Lite Dodge was able to keep with Jeff Gordon as he set the pace in the opening stages. 

Once the track began to rubber up, however, the handling on Busch’s blue deuce went away.  Fighting an ill-handling car, the 2004 series champion began to back-slide through the field.  With less than fifty laps remaining, Busch was caught up in an incident with David Stremme, David Reutimann and Martin Truex Jr. The Penske Racing driver sustained damage in the incident, but was able to remain on the lead lap and finish 18^th.

“It was just tight all day long and nothing we did made it any better,” the elder Busch said after the race. “We started up front and stayed in the top-10 more than half the race. We wrestled it all we could without crashing. I know we took a hit in the points. Love today, but I’m just glad to get out of here and not any worse.”

In addition to the Busch brothers, the Roush Fenway Racing organization also wishes they could simply forget about Martinsville. While Jamie McMurray’s tenth-place finish was the highlight of the day, the other four Roush cars struggled to say the least.

Matt Kenseth dropped like a rock after starting in the tenth-spot.  In an uncharacteristic mistake, the No. 17 pit crew was issued a pass-through penalty for not maintaining control over a tire during stops on Lap 71.  Unable to get his arms wrapped around the car the rest of the day, the Daytona 500 winner came home 23^rd one lap down.

“That really set the tone for our race,” crew chief Drew Blickensderfer said of the early penalty. “It put us in a position early in the race like that where we had to start in the back and we were a lap down. We never could get to the point where the leader would lap one person and then they'd throw the caution, so we were just on the bad side of that pretty much most of the day.”

As for the other three Roush Fenway drivers, Carl Edwards, David Ragan and Greg Biffle, the trio finished 26^th, 27^th and 28^th respectively, all two laps down.  While Ragan and Biffle simply struggled the entire event, Edwards fell victim to a cut Goodyear under green.  

"This track is just not my track,” Biffle said after his frustrating day. “We've run as good as we can here, but it's tough for us.  We could never get the thing to turn and get good grip off.  Every once in a while we run good, but we're just missing that little bit of something.  We'll keep working on it and we'll get it one of these days." 

One of the toughest and most demanding tracks on the NASCAR circuit, Martinsville definitely bit some of the biggest names in the sport this past Sunday.  Heading to Texas this weekend, each of these drivers and teams are looking to put the disappointment behind them and respond in a big way.