Busch repeats amid late-race rumbles at Atlanta track

Sunday, Mar. 07, 2010

HAMPTON, Ga. – Kurt Busch had to go 341 laps in 325-lap race to finally reach the checkered flag. The melees and mayhem would not stop him from getting there. But that point was tested on Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Busch took control late in the last 50 laps and held off the field through two green/white/checkered attempts to win the in the Kobalt Tools 500 for the second consecutive year.

Busch led when a frightening accident flung Penske Racing teammate Brad Keselowski into the wall with three laps left, when the first attempt at a green/white/checkered was halted by a spiral of cars behind him and when the checkered flag finally flew.

Busch, who led six times for 129 laps, beat former teammate Matt Kenseth by 0.482 seconds. Juan Pablo Montoya was third and Kasey Kahne, who led eight times for 144 laps, was fourth.

“I feel like we won the race outright today. No doubt we did our job on pit road, no doubt we did our job on long runs, and I think we hit the right combination for restarts. That's what I'm most proud of.”

The race was forced to a green-white-checkered finish and a pitched battle between Busch and Montoya was ruined with two laps of the scheduled distance left when Carl Edwards appeared to punt Keselowski, sending his No. 12 Dodge flying upside down into the wall on the frontstretch.

Busch weaved his way back to the front on a balky restart led by Clint Bowyer, but the field didn’t even make it back to the white flag as Jamie McMurray’s weaving No. 1 Chevrolet appeared to cue a massive seven-car wreck coming out of Turn 4.

Busch fired off on the second attempt at a green/white/checkered finish, and Montoya had no chance to weave through the field and past surprise fifth-place finisher Paul Menard.

“I was hoping we would finish second, but he caught my surprise,” Montoya said. “You know, we have those two lines we are supposed to start with, and he went for it like 40 yards before the first one. It really surprised me. It is not a big deal, he deserves to win.”

After a series of cautions, Busch restarted as the leader with 27 laps left and withstood a furious challenge from Kenseth to pull away to a one-second lead in five laps.

Montoya emerged as his main problem with six laps left, hacking into his lead each lap.

Kahne was the dominant force of the second half of the race, leading eight times for a race-high 144 laps. A 7.6-second lead was negated by a caution and he lost the front spot briefly to Kurt Busch, but he blew back ahead with 90 laps left. He never challenged for the lead again after Busch passed him on Lap 289.

Jimmie Johnson, who had won two consecutive races entering Sunday's, again enjoyed the kind of good fortune expected of a four-time defending champion. He was able to cycle back through the field, and actually gain spots, despite being forced to pit early with a vibration with 124 laps left.

Several fast cars, including those of Kyle Busch and Mark Martin, had plummeted through the field after being caught by cautions after pitting early under green, but Johnson advanced to second place when the rest of the field pitted with the green out.

He trailed the leader, Kahne, by 7.6 seconds with 114 laps left when a debris caution erased the deficit.

Johnson eventually faded following a pit mishap but recovered to finish 12th.

Busch quipped before the final restart that he’d won the race three times and would have to do it a fourth. His new crew chief, Steve Addington, knew he had little to do with it at that point.

“I used to get so nervous that I'd want to puke there at this situation,” he said. “Now it (was) out of our hands. There's nothing we can do. We can't control any of this stuff.

“So you just sit there. You take what it is. You got to have confidence in your driver that he'll get it done. I had confidence in the driver to get it done.”

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