Kurt Busch went the distance to win Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

photo credit: Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

“This has been a dream come true, to be able to wrap up this special weekend, to put a bow on it with this Coca-Cola 600 win,” Busch said. “It’s a prestigious race, a tough race, and most of all it’s a team race. This was a fantastic job by my guys that battled all day long to keep me up front. I don’t know what our worst running position was, but I can’t say it was worse than fifth or sixth maybe. Great pit stops, great calls by Steve Addington (crew chief), Dave Winston (race engineer), my guys.”

Busch led a whopping 252 of 600 laps. It’s the second win for Busch this year and first at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Busch won the non-points paying exhibition All-Star Race last weekend at Charlotte. He becomes the 7th driver to win both the All-Star Race and Coca-Cola 600 in the same season. Kasey Kahne was the last driver to do so in 2008.

“I’m speechless with the fact that we swept both races,” Busch said. “It’s hallowed ground to get to stand where some of the greats have stood.”

Busch’s team owner, Roger Penske was in attendance for the Indianapolis 500, but wasn’t able to make the trip to Charlotte.

“Roger (Penske) is an amazing individual,” Busch said. “I’m happy to race for him and bring him home wins, especially on a day like today when he didn’t get it at Indy and we beat a Ganassi car today to win it. That’s something special. I keep saying the word ‘special’ because the 600 is really, really something that I think of the greats that have this style trophy sitting in their case. My team helped me do that today. To beat a Ganassi car, McMurray, those guys kept us honest, he was in the mix. If I could say anything, I would say Ganassi should give that guy a raise and pay that man.”

Jamie McMurray settled in behind Busch for a runner-up finish. McMurray led for the first time on lap 149, but it wasn’t until lap 299 that he looked like a contender for Kurt. McMurray led a total of 29 laps.

“I knew whoever came out ahead on that last pit stop between Kurt and I, if somebody didn’t screw up, that would be the race winner,” McMurray said about the final restart with 19 laps remaining. “It would take me too many laps to run Kurt down. You get within 10 or 12 car lengths, you stall out. I just didn’t have enough time in the end.”

A win for McMurray would’ve given his team owner, Chip Ganassi, two prestige back-to-back wins in a day. Dario Franchitti won the 94th Indianapolis 500 earlier in the day for Target Chip Ganassi Racing. Ganassi traveled to Charlotte after finishing his media obligations in Indianapolis.

“Honestly, I didn’t think much about winning today because of Chip winning the 500,” McMurray said. “He did come on my radio about halfway through when he showed up and tried to talk because he didn’t know he was talking to me. I yelled. I didn’t know who it was. Then they told me under caution that that was Chip. That was kind of funny. That was a good moment to have with him, but I haven’t seen him since the 500. He talked on the radio a little bit on one of those cautions and really that’s all we discussed about it.”

Kyle Busch lead early for 36 laps, but had to work his way back up to a 3rd place finish.

“Real proud of the way that we did,” Busch said. “I can’t say that we could have asked for a better finish. The 2 (Kurt Busch) and 1 (Jamie McMurray) were just so stout. They were unbelievable. They were yarding us but two and a half 10ths a lap at least the last run of the race. Lucky to hold off the 5 (Mark Martin) and the 24 (Jeff Gordon). I don’t know where we should have finished, but probably 10th to 12th with what we had. We made some bold moves on restarts. Guys did an awesome job on pit road that got me the track position.”

It was an up and down evening for the younger of the Busch brothers. Kyle lead twice early on for a total of 36 laps, before the evening took a turn downward. He collided with Brad Keselowski on pit road and then nudged into Jeff Burton during a late race restart.

“I mean, these are the nights that championships are made of,” Busch said. “We’ve protected ourselves tonight, got back up through there, got a good, solid third-place finish out of it I’m happy about it. I’m not dissatisfied at all that we didn’t win tonight’s race. I would have liked to have. But didn’t have a car capable of doing it after we got caught up in that wreck. Frustrating we were really good early. Part of what happened tonight in 600 miles, beating guys out of the pits coming in. Unfortunate we had that circumstance. The M&M car was fast. Got it back going well at the end where we could come up through there and finish well.”

Immediately following the race, Jeff Burton confronted Kyle Busch on pit road:

Mark Martin finished 4th followed by the defending race winner, David Reutimann. Jeff Gordon, Clint Bowyer, Paul Menard, Ryan Newman and Matt Kenseth complete the top-10. All but two (Mark Martin and Paul Menard) of the drivers that finished in the top-10 lead laps during the race.

For the (unofficial) race results, click here (nascar.com)

There were 8 cautions for 34 laps and 33 lead changes among 17 drivers: R. Newman 1-11; Kurt Busch 12-51; J. Logano 52; M. Truex Jr. 53; Kurt Busch 54-63; D. Hamlin 64-66; Kurt Busch 67-92; D. Gilliland 93; J. Johnson 94-95; Kurt Busch 96; J. Johnson 97-130; Kyle Busch 131-147; Kurt Busch 148; J. McMurray 149; Kyle Busch 150-168; Kurt Busch 169-214; C. Bowyer 215-217; Kurt Busch 218-268; D. Reutimann 269-270; M. Kenseth 271-277; Kurt Busch 278-298; J. McMurray 299-301; Kurt Busch 302; B. Keselowski 303-304; Kurt Busch 305-339; J. McMurray 340-352; D. Reutimann 353; T. Stewart 354; D. Ragan 355; D. Earnhardt Jr. 356-365; J. McMurray 366-377; Kurt Busch 378; J. Gordon 379-381; Kurt Busch 382-400.

Kevin Harvick hangs on to the lead in the series standings by 29 points over Kyle Busch.