RICHMOND, Va. -- As Brad Keselowski rattled off three consecutive wins to create a scenario in which NASCAR's "Big 3" had won just once in the past six races, there was some talk that maybe, just maybe, Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. had lost the edge they enjoyed in combining to win 17 regular-season races.
Busch, Harvick and Truex could be forgiven if they enjoyed a little bit of an LOL reaction Saturday night in the Federated Auto Parts 400 as they finished 1-2-3 at Richmond Raceway -- Busch especially, considering he had to drop to the rear of the field at the start of the race for unapproved adjustments as the team had to repair his car after he scraped the wall in qualifying a day earlier.
"Being able to start dead last and come up through the field and win this thing?" Busch said. "That's right Rowdy nation. All for you, baby."
Busch automatically qualified for the second round of the playoffs with the win, and Truex's third-place finish guaranteed him a spot in the next round on points. Harvick, bouncing back from a 39th-place finish because of a blown tire at Las Vegas, only needs to start the elimination race Sept. 30 on the new, unpredictable and expected-to-be treacherous Charlotte Motor Speedway road course.
"The cream rises to the top," Busch crew chief Adam Stevens said. "This time of year, though, a lot of guys make a lot of advancements in their programs. We saw the Penske cars with speed, certainly, the 9 [of Chase Elliott] car with speed, the 42 [of Kyle Larson].
"There's plenty of guys that are getting better at the right time. But the three best still seem to be the Big 3."
The Big 3 join Keselowski, who locked himself in with the Vegas win a week earlier, as really the only four drivers safe going into what many expect as a wild race next week.
"We'll be back whenever we need to be," Truex said about the Big 3. "You can't hold good teams down. In racing, a lot of things happen. Guys have bad weeks. On average, you can't keep great teams down, and that's what we all have."
All three drivers left Richmond happy, a rarity for those when they come close but don't win.
"You always want to win the race, but knowing what's ahead of us next week, you need as many points as possible to be in a good position to be on offense and not trying to be salvaging something, because you don't know what's going to happen," Harvick said.
"It's a good feeling to know you have a good cushion."
It's a good feeling because the playoffs are about survival. And survive and advance is like a win.
Truex could have been upset as he swept the opening two stages and led a race-high 163 laps. An uncontrolled tire penalty after the second stage sent him to the rear of the field and he could only rally to third. Truex has led 675 laps in the past five races at Richmond but hasn't won.
"We wanted to win, we wanted to win bad," Truex said. "I honestly don't know what we've got to do to win at Richmond. What do we have to do? It's incredibly frustrating. But at the same time, sometimes things just aren't meant to be.
"When you look at the big picture, we got what we needed."
Harvick had a solid car and ended up 0.777 seconds behind Busch across the finish line.
"If I had another 25 laps, maybe [I could have passed him]," Harvick said. "His car was pretty good."
Busch appeared to have the best long-run car. He battled Keselowski for about 20 laps before passing him with 37 laps remaining. Keselowski dropped to ninth, having worn out his tires.
After Busch took dozens of laps to pass Keselowski, often getting beside him but then not being able to complete the move, he finally got past Keselowski -- who promptly responded with a hard tap to Busch's rear bumper. Busch held on and gave Keselowski a wave.
"You try to take a step back and kind of regroup, let everything cool down again and go re-attack, and I was able to do that about twice," Busch said. "Second time, it finally paid off when he was starting to drop. I spent a lot of time racing hard with him, and, you know, good to be able to do that cleanly on my part, and then when you spend 15, 20 laps trying to pass the guy and you pass him and you get run into right as soon as you pass him, it's kind of like, 'Come on, man, really?' But oh well."
Soon after, Keselowski was passed by Harvick. And then Truex.
"We know what we need," Keselowski said. "We'll find it here in the next few weeks."
Keselowski sounds confident, but fans should have reason to be skeptical. The Big 3? They're back. If they ever were even gone to begin with.
"It seemed like we were racing those guys a lot, and without the 78 [of Truex] having an issue there, he would have been right up in the mix of it, and he got back there anyway," Stevens said.
"Six races isn't a long time and probably not a stretch of our best tracks in between those [previous] six races. But we're coming up to some good ones."