Busch returns 18 to Victory Lane, gives Toyota first win

HAMPTON, Ga. -- In what was tantalizingly close to a three-race weekend sweep, Kyle Busch won Sunday's Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, after the winner of the previous two Sprint Cup races, Carl Edwards, fell out with transmission trouble after 274 of the 325 laps.

In posting the fifth victory of his career, by 2.066 seconds over Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Tony Stewart, Busch took Toyota to Victory Lane for the first time in a Cup points race (read more). It was the first triumph in NASCAR's top series for a foreign manufacturer since Al Keller won at the airport road course in Linden, N.J., in a Jaguar in 1954.

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Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished third, followed by Greg Biffle and pole-sitter Jeff Gordon. Clint Bowyer, Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth, Brian Vickers and Jeff Burton completed the top 10.

"The 18! The 18! The 18 is back at Atlanta!" Busch exulted on his radio after crossing the finish line, referring to the six wins at Atlanta of one of his predecessors in Joe Gibbs' No. 18 car, Bobby Labonte (watch video).

Busch, who won Friday's Craftsman Truck Series race and led 153 of the first 170 laps in Saturday's Nationwide Series event before blowing a right-front tire, retained his lead in the Cup point standings by 73 over Biffle, who lost two positions in the final two laps after using up his tires in passing Stewart for second on Lap 310.

Edwards began to assert his dominance in the final third of the race, passing Busch for the lead on Lap 240. The driver of the No. 99 Ford, who suffered a 100-point penalty for an oil tank cover violation at Las Vegas, opened an advantage of more than 4 seconds before Elliott Sadler slammed into the inside wall on the backstretch on Lap 261, bringing out the seventh caution of the race.

Edwards won the race off pit road, but with smoke trailing from his car, he surrendered the lead to Busch on Lap 269. Edwards regained the point on the following circuit but the smoke worsened, and Edwards ultimately brought his Roush Fenway Racing Ford to the garage 51 laps short of the finish (watch video).

Despite Edwards' demise, Busch said the No. 99 is the Roush team to beat.

"Carl Edwards had the best car here [Sunday] by far," Busch said. "Whatever those guys have figured out over there, it's really scaring us. The 16 [Biffle] doesn't show it, the 17 [Kenseth] doesn't show it, the 26 [Jamie McMurray] doesn't show it, but for some reason that 99 does -- whether it's him driving the thing or whether it's the car, it's definitely something that we've got to work on."

Stewart had nothing good to say about the Goodyear's hard tire (read more), but he had nothing but praise for his new teammate, who came to Joe Gibbs racing after finishing the 2007 season with Hendrick Motorsports.

"He's amazing," Stewart said. "I'm proud to have him as a teammate. I think he's a huge asset to Joe Gibbs Racing, obviously. It's fun to watch him. When he runs the Truck race, and we're sitting in the bus, I normally don't pay that close attention. But it's just fun to watch him drive, whether it's a Truck or a Nationwide car or the Cup car.

"He will drive it far beyond what it's capable of doing. There's no doubt at the end of the day that he's got everything that car's capable of. That's what you want out of a guy -- stuff like driving the thing on the apron in Turn 2 during the Truck race the other day, passing guys. I haven't seen anybody do that here -- not on purpose, at least. He likes a loose car, and it doesn't bother him at all to drive it that way."

Notes: Coupled with Busch's victory in Friday's American Commercial Lines 200, the victory in the Kobalt Tools 500 marked the first time a driver has won a Cup race and a Truck Series race in the same weekend. ... Jimmie Johnson, who swept the two Atlanta races last year, nursed an ill-handling car to a 13th-place finish, the last position on the lead lap. ... Earnhardt led the second-most laps, 62, for his second consecutive top-five finish.