Kyle Busch recovered from an early miscue during green flag pit stops when he missed his pitbox and fell a lap down and an incident with Jamie McMurray which almost claimed the two driver's cars to win at Talladega for the first time in his young career. As teammate Tony Stewart, who has finished 2nd at Talldega 6 times and won the Nationwide race, led the most laps, Busch was working his way up the running order before finally taking the lead on lap 184, holding off late charges from Jeff Gordon and Juan Pablo Montoya.
"I don't think I've ever finished one here yet without some sort of damage. We still had damage, but it wasn't enough to keep us from Victory Lane."
Busch was leading on the final lap when Michael McDowell spun at the end of the tri-oval, however no caution was thrown due to McDowell being behind the pack and out of harms way. However, just seconds after McDowell got his car pointed in the right direction, another incident occured in turn 2, this melee collected several cars, finally bringing out the yellow flag.
Meanwhile, behind Busch was Montoya, who had his best finish since the Brickyard 400 last August.
"I didn't want to finish second," Montoya said. "It's hard. I would think I would have tried to make a move coming out of four."
The chance would never come when Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jamie McMurray tangled in turn 2, sparking the race-ending wreck that claimed 11 cars. However, the strong run put Montoya into the top-12 in points, the final cut-off spot for the Chase.
The final wreck wasn't the only spectacular crash seen during the event. With 14 laps to go, Earnhardt Jr., Tony Stewart and Joe Nemechek all tangled, resulting in Bobby Labonte spinning in front of the field, involving 6 cars, including Stewart's totalled Toyota. Stewart spent the most time out front, only to leave with more disappointment from Talladega, but Stewart know's that just plate-racin'.
"That's what happens late in these races," Stewart said after climbing from his car. "If it was my fault, I'm sorry. But by looking at the video, I don't think I did anything wrong."
After it was all said and done, it was a common sight as Kyle Busch stood in victory lane, something he has done a total of 7 times this year in Nascar's top-3 series.
Hello, I'm Tyler Head. I live in Utica, NY and currently attend Ilion Jr. Sr. High School. I'm a senior this year (woot! haha), and I'm persuing a career in Computer Hardware design, or Journalism... I guess I'm undecided, lol. I enjoy a lot of sports, with my favorite being NASCAR. My favorite driver is Jeff Gordon, I even made a fansite. As much as I enjoy NASCAR, I also like Baseball, Football, and College Basketball.
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