FONTANA, Calif. -- You'll have to pardon Kyle Busch if he's suffering from a little "yellow line fever."

One week after Busch finished fourth in the Daytona 500 with what arguably was the dominant car, he talked about the final restart and why he seemed to back off the throttle shortly after the field took the green.

"I felt like I got forced down [below the yellow line] because I was already in the act of passing," Busch said during Friday's rain delay at Auto Club Speedway. "But I didn't end up completing it below the yellow line and when I got to Turn 1, I rolled out of it a little bit to see if I could get [Jeff Burton] back by me.

"I didn't know what the protocol was about letting people back by -- if it was one car, two cars, three cars or if I had to let the guy I passed go by or what. I rolled out of it somewhat to try to get it straight."

Busch said a previous incident played on his mind as the events of the restart unfolded.

"I'd been busted two years ago for it in the Daytona 500 -- we were running fourth or fifth with eight laps to go and I got busted for the same thing," he said. "You need the yellow line rule. That's definitely a fact.

"I think there needs to be a little bit more leniencies on it sometimes, like with my incident -- I think NASCAR was lenient on it because of the certain circumstances. If I checked up, I didn't know what was behind me and if I'd stack up the entire field. It was basically going to kill my run and the No. 31's run, too. Luckily it all panned out."

Unfortunately, Busch was unable to get close enough to teammate Tony Stewart's bumper to help and could only watch as eventual winner Ryan Newman and Kyle's older brother, Kurt, surged by on the outside.

"I don't know if he could see the run that was coming with [Newman and Kurt Busch] on the outside," Kyle Busch said. "I know he came down because he wanted me to push him but I wasn't close enough and didn't have a big enough push from behind with [Kasey Kahne].

"We didn't have a good enough run down the back straightaway. I felt like if he would have stayed up there and at least tried to block [them], they might have just drove right by him anyways. I think he did what he felt was right."

Busch led 86 laps and seemed to be able to put his car in places no one else dared. The reason? Busch knew his car was awesome.

"Newman and I had a part during the race where it was only him and I in the middle and somehow we still made up some ground," Busch said. "I actually had to dump him off because I felt like we were going to start falling back a little bit. I had to pull into a lane and he was left there but he ducked into the lane as well.

"For some reason my stuff was about the only thing that could run through [the middle] all day. In practice the car could go anywhere it wanted to."

A good car requires a good crew chief, and Busch and crew chief Steve Addington are already building a nice rapport.

"It has only been one race and we have more time to get going," Busch said. "So far so good ... we've been fast and haven't had to make too many changes.

"We've unloaded great everywhere. We made changes at Daytona to the car in which we felt we were a little bit better and we made a few we felt like weren't as good. You go out there and try to make it better and sometimes you don't. That's just a part of the learning curve and learning what you can do with these cars, still. We were pretty pleased with it all."

Busch finished second in the Craftsman Truck Series race, second in the Nationwide Series race and fourth in the Daytona 500, so he obviously knows how to run up front.

"We've been successful and we've been fast," Busch said. "We just can't close. Don't ask me why ... guess it's not my time yet.

"It was a great week and a great weekend. We just weren't able to capitalize and come home with a win -- that was probably the most frustrating part of the weekend -- but we have California this weekend and Vegas next week where we feel we can run strong at, too."