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Denny Hamlin had the race won. He had led 381 of 382 laps and was pulling away from a battle for second between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kyle Busch. He found himself just 17 laps from a victory at his hometown track, but the next lap he found himself in third and at the mercy of his right front tire which had gone soft and was likely to blow. It finally did on lap 391 as Hamlin settled for, to understate it, disappointing finish to a race that was his to lose.

However, that second place battle between Earnhardt Jr. and Busch now became a battle for the win with six laps to go. Just a few laps after the restart, Busch got loose while trying to pass Earnhardt and the duo made contact in turn 3, sending Earnhardt, who hasn't won a points paying Cup race since this race in 2006, into the wall. Emerging from the smoke was Clint Bowyer, who was running third and was able to steer under Busch and the wrecking Earnhardt. After the race Busch would be confronted by members of Earnhardt Jr.'s crew before addressing the media.

"Just a bummer deal," Busch shrugged after climbing from his car. "We were both racing hard there. That was just a product of good hard racing. I apologize that it happened. I hate that it did. We just didn’t give each other enough room in turn 3."

""I wouldn't say that was intentional. I ran hard and got wrecked. Whether it was fair or not, he's going to need security," a disgruntled Earnhardt lamented after settling for a 15th place finish. "I thought I was going to end the winless streak tonight and celebrate and be happy. We'll have to keep running good like we are and try somewhere else."

Bowyer held off Busch on the final restart, as Busch was battling with Mark Martin for second, to earn his second career victory in Cup series competition. After crossing the line Bowyer sarcastically asked his crew chief Gil Martin, "We knew we had that all day, didn't we?''

"It's awesome. I love this place,'' he said in Victory Lane. "I messed things up in qualifying for the guys, we just dug deep and worked hard and things worked out... took advantage of a misfortune right there up front. This is awesome. It's what it's all about.''

The race changed quickly on lap 229 when J.J Yeley got into the outside wall, sparking a Talladega-esque incident that involved at least nine cars, taking Jimmie Johnson, Kurt Busch and Matt Kenseth all out of contention. The wreck stopped the race over 20 minutes, giving a preview to the eventual chaos that would unfold.

"Things happen so fast, you don't know where to go," said Busch, who finished 42nd in the 43-car field after the incident. "I had my front brakes all locked up."

Another odd incident that occurred was with 45 laps to go when Casey Mears and Michael Walrtip made contact coming off turn 4, sending Mears into the wall. As Mears' heavily damaged car slowly made it's way to turn 1, Walrtip got back on the gas and got into the rear end of Mears' car, pushing him all the way to the end of the straightaway. Waltrip was parked for the remainder of the race, while he and Mears finished 37th and 36th, respectively.

Hamlin had been the fastest car all weekend long, with the top lap in the only practice session of the impound weekend, winning the pole for the Cup race later that night, and then going on to win the Nationwide Series race for his first Nascar win at Richmond. However, Hamlin will leave Richmond bitterly disappointed, as will the still winless Earnhardt, after coming so close to finding victory lane.