Busch arrived at Richmond in 14th place in the standings and effectively needed a victory in order to have a realistic chance of breaking into the top 12 in the points.
During the race he battled to stay ahead of Brian Vickers in the order to try to snatch 12th place in the championship from Matt Kenseth, who struggled for pace all night and eventually dropped a lap down.
However despite beating Vickers, Busch's fifth place was not enough for him to secure a place in the Chase as the Red Bull driver beat him by just eight points to clinch the final spot in this year's title battle.
"It's very, very frustrating. I'm heartbroken, but the good Lord put me in this predicament for some reason and someday I'll find out what it is and be able to tell you guys," said Busch.
"Right now, I'm not quite sure. We'll take this and go the rest of the year and try to win some more races. There were a lot of situations this year that I screwed up, that we got put into bad spots, had a couple days that we were bad on pitroad.
"It's just a conglomerate of things that put us in this predicament, it's not just one thing, it's not these last two weeks, it's the previous 26 all together. Unfortunately some of those weeks were worse than others."
The 24-year-old had been a Chase contender for the past three years. Last season he was dominant during the regular season but then struggled in the last ten races and was not a contender for the title during the play-off.
Busch has vowed to stay competitive for the next few weeks to try to win some more races and set the tone for a more consistent 2010.
"We can always look toward the rest of the year to try to win some races and go out with a bang and try to build on something for next year," he said. "I've been struggling a little bit this year with these cars for some reason. Last year I took to them real quick.
"That was a hard battle all night. My arms are sore, my back is sore, but it was fun to be able to race all these guys. Vickers put up a whale of a fight there at the end."
Busch's team-mate Denny Hamlin, who claimed his second win of the season at Richmond, will be the only representative from Joe Gibbs Racing in the title battle that starts next weekend at Loudon.
Pep has faith in playersVickers targets Richmond victory
