2010 NASCAR All-Star Race 5/22/10

Kurt Busch won the million dollar All-Star Race Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway!

photo credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR

“Way to go boys!” Busch said over the team’s radio after winning. “A million cool one—whoo!”

No points were on the line, just a cool $1,028,309 dollar pay-out!

“Man, this car was a rocket ship at the end,” Busch said. “This is huge. This is one of the big marquee events. We were able to dodge the wrecks and, ultimately, we had the fastest car when it counted.”

It took two green-white-checkered finishes for Kurt Busch to collect his first All-Star race win.

“It’s an unbelievable experience,” Busch said. “It’s something that you sit there and you look at the greats that have won this race, the ones that have had so many years go by in between the wins, just to have an opportunity to go for it tonight, I felt like our Penske Dodge was right where it needed to be at the end.”

The race went overtime after Kyle Busch and Kasey Kahne collided with 2 to go. While leading after a late race restart, Denny Hamlin seemed to have held up the younger Busch which sent him into the wall. Kyle wasn’t amused.

“Somebody better keep me away from Denny Hamlin,” Kyle Busch shouted over his team’s radio. “I swear to God, I am going to kill (him). All his fault. I had this race won! It was won!”

Kyle Busch and Kasey Kahne finished 14th and 15th, respectively. Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch are teammates. It’s being reported Joe Gibbs brought the two drivers together for a discussion immediately following the race.

“First, he (Busch) got a big run off the corner. I was clear getting in and basically I just throttled off extremely early,” Hamlin said as he gave his side of the story. “Really it was a bad corner. He was going to go by me. I’m looking out my front windshield and he says I’m clear and so I’m going to use all the race track I can. The problem is, Kyle had a run to the outside, and with me moving up getting real tight, it then took some air away from the front of his car and he slid up in the wall.”

Kyle declined to comment as he left the garage.

Martin Truex Jr. won the preceding Sprint Showdown to transfer into the All-Star Race. He went home with a runner-up finish.

“To come here, not be in the show, win the open, run well all night, it was a lot of fun for us,” Truex said. “We just fought track position all night. Finally got up there at the end. The closer we got to the front, the better we got. The guys did a good job with the car, adjusting the car from the sunlight of the open, to win that, and then throughout the race tonight. They did a good job. It was a lot of fun. It was fun to let those guys get in there, do their thing. Just needed a few more laps. I was catching Kurt there at the end. But it was a good day for us.”

“You know, it stinks,” Joey Logano said after his third place finish. “All the guys did a great job. Had awesome pit stops. Kind of the name of the game lately for us. Had good stuff. So we’re close, man. It just stinks when you’re sitting on the front row with a green-white-checkered, and you feel like you can win this thing, you come up short, it’s a tough gig.”

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

None of the Hendrick Motorsports drivers were able to contend for the win at the end. Dale Earnhardt Jr finished 12th. Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon were both knocked out in the same accident and left 17th and 20th in the 21-car field. Jimmie Johnson won the second and third segments, but went spinning  through the grass on the front stretch with two laps to go. He finished 13th.

The Sprint Cup Series will resume points racing next Sunday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway with the Coca-Cola 600, the longest race on the current schedule.