The win was Busch’s fifth of the season in 11 starts in his own No. 51 Toyota. It was his second win at the 1.5-mile track and the 35th of his career. Even with a win, though, Busch knew the chances of claiming the owners title were slim, given that his No. 51 entered the race 23 points behind Crafton’s No. 88 ThorSport Racing Toyota.
 
"There’ve been a lot of great things that we’ve been blessed with, first an owners championship in our first year out with our race team (2010) and now again here in 2013 with a different crew chief (Rudy Fugle) and a lot of different drivers behind the wheel," Busch said.
 
"Having Denny Hamlin and Scott Bloomquist, Chad Hackenbracht and Erik Jones … and, of course, without Erik Jones’ win last weekend (at Phoenix), we wouldn’t be in this position this weekend to come out here and have the opportunity with those bonus points to be close enough. Matt had to have trouble (for us to take the title), and unfortunately he did."

Ryan Blaney rallied from contact with the wall to finish second. Jeb Burton hit the wall twice and finished third. Fourth-place finisher Brendan Gaughan posted his fourth top-five in as many races, and Ron Hornaday Jr. ran fifth in his first race in the No. 34 Turner Scott Motorsports entry.

Busch was leading when Burton scraped the wall for the second time on Lap 130 during a late green-flag run. That sent the race to overtime, and Busch led the field to the green flag on Lap 136, but a four-car wreck that collected Crafton in the melee necessitated the second green-white-checkered restart.

Johnny Sauter‘s wreck on Lap 142 caused the eighth caution of the evening to set up the third and final try at a two-lap shootout.

Blaney, 19, also made a statement in a close rookie-of-the-year battle against Darrell Wallace Jr., becoming the youngest Sunoco Rookie of the Year in series history. Blaney led 51 of the first 65 laps and was first onto pit road on Lap 65 after Wallace Jr. tagged the outside wall one circuit earlier.

Busch was first off pit road for a restart on Lap 70, but after a pitched battle for the lead that went four-wide at one juncture — with Busch, Blaney, Crafton and Hornaday all involved — Blaney reclaimed the top spot from Busch on Lap 78 and began to pull away.

Blaney’s lead was cut to one second on Lap 88, but Busch began to close, and on Lap 94 Blaney scraped the outside wall to cause the fourth caution of the race but rallied late for the runner-up finish as the race went 14 laps beyond its posted distance.

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