Kyle Busch rolling into Richmond already in the Chase

— -- DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Kyle Busch didn't need a Kyle Busch day Sunday to lock himself in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

He didn't need to do anything amazing in the Southern 500. He didn't need to lead laps. He just needed to have a solid finish. If he wrecked, he just couldn't wreck hard. If he had some trouble, he had to overcome it. In other words, Busch didn't need to be the superstar he had been the previous nine weeks. He just needed to be smart and calculating.

That can be easier said than done during 4 hours, 28 minutes of competition at Darlington Raceway. But there are reminders of the path and lessons from the past that can help pave the way.

Busch still isn't fully recovered from the Feb. 21 crash in the Xfinity Series race at Daytona International Speedway. A broken right leg and broken left foot -- he still could have additional surgery on his foot in December -- kept him out for 11 races.

It should have been more, but everything healed as quickly as possible and Busch followed his doctor's orders, pushing his body to where he could return for the Sprint All-Star Race. When he returned, Busch figured even without any mulligans, he likely would need all 15 races left in the regular season to guarantee himself a spot in the Chase.

The first four races included a wreck at Dover and then a wreck when he spun on a wet track at Michigan. Making the Chase seemed like a nearly lost cause, and his early struggles had some thinking he would have to scratch and claw and need everything to go his way and then maybe, just maybe, he would make the Chase.

Busch will head to Richmond International Raceway next weekend locked in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. Four wins. A second. A seventh. An eighth. And three races outside the top-10 but still respectable (11th, 17th, 21st) provided enough points that Busch doesn't have to worry about what he does in Virginia.

Considering Busch averaged a 17th-place finish last year and saw Chase hopes slip away at Richmond in 2009 and 2012, it can't be overstated how big a deal Busch's seventh-place finish at Darlington and the past 10 races were when looking at his career accomplishments.

"It was something we weren't sure was possible when I came back from all the injuries and the rehab and everything like that," Busch said. "It's a great opportunity. ... I thought there was a slim chance. I wasn't sure how good a chance we had.

"If we had cars like we had last year, no, we weren't going to be in the Chase. But everybody's gone to work."

Team owner Joe Gibbs has repeatedly called Busch's 2015 a great sports story, a great comeback. It wouldn't have been surprising for Busch and his team to collapse over the frustration, wondering whether Busch was just a little behind having spent three months of strenuous rehab, and if the chemistry of him and new crew chief Adam Stevens would take time to develop.

"I felt like the odds were against us," Gibbs said. "And for him to be able to pull this off and come back, win four times and get back in the Chase tonight -- they had a great game plan [for Darlington].

"Adam and Kyle, they talked all night about the game plan, what they wanted to do, and first up was to make sure that they had enough points tonight that they didn't have to worry next week. So that was a big deal for them."

Busch didn't have it easy Sunday night at Darlington. After a wreck Friday relegated him to a backup car, Busch started 10th and didn't appear to have a car that could run much better than that. He spun after contact with Greg Biffle on Lap 207 but was able to stay on the lead lap.

And still, he took a car that he felt wasn't very good and finished seventh with it.

He bluntly described the wreck with Biffle:

"No give-and-take -- I guess no give, plenty of take," Busch said. "That's not how you're supposed to race Darlington and we both screwed it up."

In past years, maybe the frustration in himself and Biffle might have resulted in a Busch collapse, especially with so much on the line. Remember last year when Busch and then-crew chief Dave Rogers sniped at each other over the radio at Bristol and it seemed like the season was falling apart?

Heck, remember the day before the Southern 500 at Darlington when NASCAR ruled Busch violated the blend-line rule during Xfinity qualifying and Busch never got in a fast lap?

Those types of responses didn't come Sunday. Maybe Busch saw the big picture. He already had too many visions of how this season could have unfolded, and none of them were good.

"We weren't looking so good after Michigan," Busch said. "It was really doom and gloom and I was bumming. I just wasn't sure what to do. I wasn't sure what was going on. It took a little bit of time to get the rust knocked off, I guess.

"That's probably the longest I've ever been out of the race car in my life and the most time I spent laying on my butt, too. ... That was a tough lick. But we made it back and we made it into the Chase."