For the second time this year Kyle Busch led the most laps in a restrictor-plate race and for the second time a wreck ended any chance of a victory.

Busch led 88 laps at Daytona but was taken out in a multi-car accident involving Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Brian Vickers. Busch led 42 laps at Talladega on Sunday, but was the victim of two separate incidents.

He escaped the early Big One with minimal damage, and repair work by his crew put him back in contention. Racing with the lead inside 20 laps to go, Busch received a bump from Jeff Burton that sent his 18 car spinning (watch video). He finished 25th.

"It's just a product of this racing with this car here," said Steve Addington, crew chief for the 18 car. "Burton came by and said he was sorry. He said he was trying to help him and he just spun him out -- that it was totally his fault and he didn't mean to and that he was trying to help so what are you going to do? It was like this before and it's going to always be like this when we come to these places. You just hang on and hope that you're in the right line and that the spotter and the driver pick the right line at the end of the race to go win it."

And so it goes at Talladega.

"When I saw Carl [Edwards] flying up in front of me (watch video), I thought he was actually going to spin down to the bottom, but the back of the car caught air. I guess the bottom line is that I kept my foot in it. I knew I was going to bounce off the wall, and we still finished third. Unfortunately, it's another destroyed race car for Stewart-Haas Racing, but it was a solid top-five finish and a good points day for us."
-- Ryan Newman, who improved four places to 13th, 30 points out of 12th

“

We just rode around in the back kind of expecting what happened to happen, and it did.

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RYAN NEWMAN

"You want to get mad, but it's just Talladega and that's what the fans pay to come see is good, hard racing, but certainly it's awful early to have a big wreck like that."
-- Jamie McMurray, on the Big One that ended his day on Lap 7

"The race tracks were built in the '50s and they were built to the aero configuration of the cars and the tires of the '50s and the cars today are way different. If they were building race tracks from scratch today, they would not be configured like this. I'm sure neither Daytona or Talladega would be configured as they are, but they're such pillars and such anchors to the sport and set such an expectation of the fans, I don't know if they can ever be changed.
-- Jack Roush, on the dangers of restrictor-plate racing

"Guys were just pushing and shoving all day. The bump-drafting is getting maybe a tick out of control. We're pushing all the way around the race track -- corners and everything -- and NASCAR didn't penalize anybody for it [Sunday], but it was probably a little excessive."
-- Greg Biffle, who steered clear of all the carnage and finished seventh

"I circled this one on the calendar to just try and survive (watch video). I'm glad that we did that"
-- Kurt Busch, who finished sixth and took over the points lead

"It's so simple to run three- and four-wide and that's what everybody was doing (watch video). If one guy makes one mistake, which looked like happened up front, it's going to cause a big one."
-- Kasey Kahne, on getting caught up in the Big One

• Brad Keselowski became the 10th driver to notch his first Cup win at Talladega, joining Richard Brickhouse, Dick Brooks, Lennie Pond, Ron Bouchard, Bobby Hillin Jr., Davey Allison, Phil Parsons, Ken Schrader and Brian Vickers.

• Keselowski's win also was the first victory for Phoenix Racing, owned by James Finch.

• Earnhardt (second) posted his 11th top-10 finish in 19 races at Talladega.

• Ryan Newman (third) posted his seventh top-10 finish in 15 races at Talladega.

• Rookies Scott Speed and Joey Logano each posted their best finishes. Speed was fifth and Logano ninth.

• There were 57 lead changes among 25 different leaders. Kyle Busch led four times for 42 laps. Denny Hamlin and Earnhardt each led seven times for 28 and 20 laps, respectively.

• Kurt Busch leads the point standings by five points over Jeff Gordon, who was involved in the Lap 7 Big One and finished 37th.