Kurt Busch Wins at Atlanta

Kurt Busch took back his lead with two laps to go and conquered a very slick racetrack at Atlanta Motor Speedway to win Sunday's Kobalt Tools 500. It was the first win for both he and manufacturer Dodge on the NASCAR Sprint Cup circuit since June of last year in Loudon, NH. Busch dominated the event, leading 234 of the 330 laps run.

Busch was leading the race with four laps to go with Brian Vickers chasing him down when Robby Gordon blew a tire in turn two, throwing debris on the racing surface and necessitating a final caution period. During the yellow, all lead lap drivers elected to pit for gas and tires. Carl Edwards came out of the pits with the lead after deciding to take on only two tires. He was followed by Busch and Jeff Gordon.

On the ensuing restart, Busch blew by Edwards exiting turn two and held off a challenge from Gordon on the white flag lap to take the victory. Edwards finished third, Kevin Harvick fourth and Vickers fifth.

Most drivers struggled to get grip on the surface all day long with Goodyear's tire package. By the final third of the race, shadows from the sun setting and partly cloudy skies helped tighten the track up and bring many teams to the front of the field, but few were ultimately able to challenge Busch.

The strangest incident of the race resulted in the ejection of Jimmy Watts, crew member on Marcos Ambrose's team. The incident occurred on lap 67 during green-flag pit stops. Most of the field had pitted except a handful of the leaders. During Ambrose's pit stop, a changed tire rolled away from the car. Watts chased the tire down, which had rolled well into the grassy area separating pit road from the front straightaway, forcing NASCAR officials to throw the yellow flag. This placed most of the drivers a lap down, and after the few remaining leaders had pitted, forced them to restart on the tail end of the lead lap.

The Sprint Cup series takes next week off, and then returns to action at Bristol, TN on March 22.