Sprint Cup Series – Kobalt Tools 500 Recap 3/7/10

Kurt Busch won Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway in a thrilling ending!

photo credit: Chris Trotman/Getty Images

“Yeah, it was a great battle for us,” Busch said. “Our Miller Lite Dodge was set up for being a utility-type car. What I mean by that is it was good on long runs, good in the middle runs and good on the short runs. We weren’t excellent in any area, but good overall…”

“I’m happy to bring it home for Steve (Addington, crew chief), this team. Overall win for Dodge early in the year means a lot to us, means a lot to the people up in Detroit.”

It marks the 21st career win for Busch in 332 races. It’s his first win and second top-10 finish so far this season.

“We need to have some more consistency, but we’ve had some off-the-wall things happen to us,” Busch said. “It’s a good gauge of, yeah, we’ve been competitive three out of the four races so far this year, and the race we weren’t as competitive as the others was our best finish. So that’s what a championship team does. We feel right now the right moves are being made, the right pit stops are being created. Who knows what the rest of the season has. But we look at the short track season coming up. We got Bristol, Martinsville, Phoenix is in the mix. For us to win here at Atlanta, it is the last race for a wing on a mile-and-a-half, we’ve got to put this setup to rest or we’ll see how it blends in with the new spoiler and adjust from there. I think the new spoiler is going to throw a wrench into it and everyone is going to have to adjust once they get past Texas.”

It was a battle of the beers throughout much of the race with Kurt Busch and Kasey Kahne swapping the lead. While Busch led 129 laps, Kahne led a race-high 144 laps. Kahne finished 4th.

photo credit: Geoff Burke/Getty Images for NASCAR

Matt Kenseth posted a runner-up finish. “Our day was really good. It was a really good, solid day for us,” Kenseth said. “I thought most of the day, a couple times we got off and didn’t have a very good car, made good adjustments, got it where — I don’t know, one run where maybe it was a second- or third-place car. Most of the time we were a third- to a fifth-place car. We really good pit stops, good adjustments. Got lucky. Got a couple good restarts at the end, and slid into second. Overall I thought we had a good car, top-five car. The guys had a lot of fun. We were real competitive, so it was a good time.” Kenseth moved up from 4th to 2nd in the point standings after posting the second-place finish.

Juan Pablo Montoya finished 3rd. “We kind of got lost in the middle of the race a little bit, made some changes. Didn’t make a lot of ground on the car, then we kind of understood where we needed to go,” Montoya said about his third-place run. “And it worked out pretty well.”

It wasn’t the usual suspects running in the top-10 over the closing laps. Paul Menard scored his best finish to date in the Sprint Cup Series after finishing 5th. Fellow Richard Petty Motorsports driver, A.J. Allmendinger finished 6th followed by Brian Vickers, Greg Biffle, Kevin Harvick and Scott Speed completed the top-10.

The entire complexion of the race changed when Carl Edwards intentionally got into the back of race winner Kurt Busch’s Penske Racing teammate, Brad Keselowski with 3 to go. Keselowski was running 6th at the time, while Edwards was 156 laps down. Edwards wrecked earlier in the day which sent him to the garage for repairs.

“To come back and just intentionally wreck someone, that’s not cool,” Keselowski said. “He could have killed someone in the grandstands.”

“I know Brad has made his career on being super-aggressive,” Edwards said. “We both had a part in it and it’s not his fault, but it’s just a little too aggressive overall, I think, for that early in the race and caused us to wreck.”

NASCAR immediately parked Carl Edwards and called him for a visit to the hauler.

“I can’t really speak on which way NASCAR’s gonna view it,” race winner Kurt Busch said. “But the way I view it is, hey, if NASCAR disciplines Edwards for it, that’s what they saw in their mind. If they don’t, that’s what they saw in their mind and that’s why they didn’t react. It’s not for me to judge how to penalize somebody.”

Keselowski ended up 36th, while Edwards placed 39th. The accident set up the first of two attempts at a green-white-checkered finish which ultimately added 16 more laps to the 325 lap race.

Tire wear issues plagued the Hendrick Motorsports drivers. Polesitter Dale Earnhardt Jr. came back from 3 laps down to finish 15th. Jimmie Johnson finished 12th while Jeff Gordon ended his day 18th. Mark Martin blew a rear-tire forcing him to take a solo spin on lap 114, but the deal breaker happened when Martin was caught up in a 7-car accident on the second to last restart. Martin finished 33rd.

There were 11 cautions for 53 laps and 31 lead changes among 13 drivers: Kyle Busch 1-13; K. Kahne 14-35; Kyle Busch 36; J. Nemechek 37; K. Kahne 38-39; Kyle Busch 40-47; K. Kahne 48-79; D. Hamlin 80; E. Sadler 81; Kurt Busch 82-116; D. Gilliland 117; Kurt Busch 118-147; D. Hamlin 148-159; M. Bliss 160; D. Hamlin 161-171; J. Montoya 172-174; K. Kahne 175-211; D. Hamlin 212-213; J. Burton 214; B. Elliott 215; K. Kahne 216-225; Kurt Busch 226; K. Kahne 227-229; Kurt Busch 230-243; K. Kahne 244-276; P. Menard 277; D. Hamlin 278-283; K. Kahne 284-288; Kurt Busch 289-327; C. Bowyer 328-331; Kurt Busch 332-341

For the (unofficial) race results, click here.

Kevin Harvick continues to lead the point standings by 26 points over 2nd place driver, Matt Kenseth.

The Sprint Cup Series will enjoy an off-week before heading to Bristol Motor Speedway in two weeks.