Ricky Rudd: "It's a struggle when I come (to Atlanta). I've had some good runs but not very many of them and today was a pretty good run for us." Credit: Autostock

Rudd battles from back of field to finish 12th

HAMPTON, Ga. -- Ricky Rudd started shotgun on the field for Sunday's Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500, but that didn't matter too much given the way the first 29 laps went for him.

With Atlanta traditionally not one of Rudd's better tracks, he and his Wood Brothers team missed the setup in qualifying and took the final provisional spot.

BASS PRO SHOPS MBNA 500 •   Unofficial Results •   Unofficial Standings VIDEO Victory Lane The Hendrick team celebrates an emotional win Three in a row Jimmie Johnson pulls off an emotional win Junior wrecks late Dale Jr. smacks the wall hard, ending his day Engine problems Kenseth becomes second Roush driver to lose engine Transmission troubles Gordon develops gear problems on Lap 179 Pit problems Sadler damages his steering after contact on pit road Race tightens Points leader Kurt Busch loses his engine on Lap 53

But the Virginia veteran rocketed from 43rd to 23rd in the first 29 laps and stayed in there all day long to finish 12th. That's 31 positions for those of you scoring at home, and it earned him the Waste Management Picking Up Places Award for the race.

"It was a good car all day, but for some reason we were a little slow on the take-off, on the get-up-and-go," Rudd said. "I'm not sure why that was, but on into a run we were really good. They made some adjustments there at the end and it was pretty good, so it was a good day for us.

"To come back to 12th here at Atlanta...it's not my best track by far," he said. "It's a struggle when I come here. I've had some good runs but not very many of them and today was a pretty good run for us."

With the advent of new pit coach Gary Smith, the Wood Brothers crew gave Rudd some stellar pit stops. Four of the seven stops the team made were under 14 seconds, and they gave Rudd a fighting chance to score well.

"Gary Smith is doing a great job and I'm tickled to death," Rudd said of his crew's performance. "The team is just building all the time. They find key guys along the way that for some reason end up between jobs or whatever and they know when to grab them. Things are really shaping up and it's really looking good."

McMurray, Kahne have top-10 days

Jamie McMurray and Kasey Kahne don't have the experience here that Rudd does, but they turned in the same type of performance. With so much attention focused on the drivers involved in the Chase for the Nextel Cup, both ran free under the radar and picked up spots as others fell by the wayside.

Kasey Kahne finished fifth and Jamie McMurray eighth. Credit: Autostock

Kahne, who has been fast all year long, started 32nd and ran all the way to fifth at the finish. In fact, Kahne led four laps while the rest of the field pitted for Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s crash on lap 312. It was his 11th top-five finish and 12th top-10 of the season.

Kahne's run through the field came despite a problem with his car's performance on restarts. He cracked the top 10 for the first time on lap 100 and was never worse than eighth the rest of the way.

"We had a problem with the carburetor or a fuel line or something," Kahne said after the race. "I'm not sure, but we were pretty bad on the restarts. I'm happy to get fifth after the problem we had, and that was a pretty big problem. Not getting run over on those restarts was nice, too.

"We battled back all day. We fought the race track all day and the way the cars moved around was very different from the way they handled yesterday [in the Busch race]. There was some pretty wild stuff going on that last 15 laps. It was a lot of fun, but it was wild."

Credit: Autostock

McMurray started 29th and finished eighth, all but locking up 11th place in the points and the $1 million payoff that goes with it with three races yet to run. McMurray is 221 points ahead of Dale Jarrett, who was 15th at the finish. That means Jarrett has to make up an average of 74 points each of the next three races to take the spot away from McMurray.

"We were just a little too loose all day," McMurray said. "Something happened on that last restart and we fell back a little bit, but all in all it was a pretty good day. That's another top 10 finish (his 10th in 11 races).

"When you look back and think what might have been if we'd qualified for the Chase...oh well, we have a good hold on 11th place and we'll see if we can't kick it up a few notches and win one of these last three races."

Michael Waltrip carried his NAPA Chevy from 40th to 14th at the finish, his fourth top-15 in the last 10 races and 10th in the last 20.