But it was the way it went that made it so spectacular. Busch started the race with what he said was a 15th-place car, and his crew changed just about everything on it over the course of the night. But the No. 78 team’s greatest asset was its driver, who took matters into his own hands on a Lap 293 restart where he lined up 11th and vaulted to second over the course of a single lap.

It was riveting to watch, as Busch charged through the low lane, then sailed high to pass a line of cars through turns 1 and 2, then crossed down to jet around Joey Logano. On Twitter, the move evoked immediate comparisons to Dale Earnhardt’s famous charge at Talladega, where he surged from 18th to first over the final three laps to claim what turned out to be his final career victory. Atlanta, though, is no restrictor-plate track.

“The seas parted,” Busch said. “I’m not going to say I did it all. You have to take advantage of the other people slipping their tires, and you can’t pass before you get to the start/finish line. It just timed out beautifully. I got half of them right after the start/finish line, and I got the other half in 1 and 2 when there was a bottleneck going into Turn 1. Where everybody else was, I went opposite, and it just worked out.”

Even leader Kyle Busch couldn’t help but notice. Riding under caution before the restart, he caught a glimpse of the scoring tower and noticed his big brother was in 11th. When the next caution flew just a lap later for a Brian Vickers slide down pit road, he was shocked to see who was directly behind him.

“When the caution flew after that restart, he was in my mirror, and I’m like, ‘Did everybody wreck? What happened?’ ” Kyle asked. “But the kid was wheeling it, I guess. He got up to second there. I thought that was pretty impressive.”

Kurt was unable to advance any further. He had started the previous restart from the low lane, where drivers were able to make up ground. Up top was something completely different — and that’s where he found himself on the next restart, lined up on the outside with Kyle down low.

“It seemed like first, third, fifth, that was the place to be,” Kurt said. “I don’t know why the outside was so slick. Even when I got up there, and I was ready to lay one on little brother, man, the tires were just sliding on ice up there.”

Kyle was able to pull away from his brother on the restart and weather one more yellow flag to claim his fourth victory of the season.

“When you’re second on a restart, you’re in a (sitting) duck situation,” Kyle said. “The top line for some reason, you can’t get any bite up there. You can’t launch off the corner at all for the restart. And when you’re on the bottom, it seems like it’s a lot easier to get going, and the leader predicts the restart, so whichever lane he’s in it’s a lot easier to see that lane move forward just because the throttle application is a lot smoother.”

Mired in the top lane, Kurt fell back to an eventual finish of fourth, still a substantial improvement over where he had run for much of the race. Busch may be headed for a fourth car at Stewart-Haas Racing next season, but he clearly has unfinished business with the No. 78 team. And if he is able to get Furniture Row Racing into the Chase next weekend at Richmond, he’ll be able to look back on one spectacular restart at Atlanta that helped them make it there.

“You have to have moments like that if you’re going to make the Chase with a 15th-place car,” he said. “We finished fourth tonight. We didn’t deserve to finish fourth. … We did all we could with all we had.”

READ MORE:

WATCH: Final Laps: AdvoCare 500	WATCH: Victory Lane: Kyle Busch	WATCH: Kahne collected in restart	READ: Bowyer’s trouble at Atlanta

In other words: a miracle on the level of what Jeremy Mayfield pulled off before the inaugural Chase in 2004, when he won the decider on the Virginia short track to secure a most unlikely playoff berth, and a feat not duplicated in the decade since.

“We don’t dictate our own fate, which is never good. Obviously, we have the speed and performance to get there, but we haven’t put together the execution or the luck. There’s only so much you can control. Maybe this was control, and maybe it wasn’t. I don’t know until the guys take (the engine) apart and look at it,” Keselowski said.

“But we ran up front and we continue to show that we at least have the pieces of what it takes every week to be a title threat and to be in the Chase, but we just haven’t put together all those pieces every week, and that’s what it takes. That doesn’t mean we don’t have what it takes, we just don’t have the consistency in putting all those pieces together this year. I know that all those pieces could come together tomorrow. Unfortunately, it didn’t come together today and that’s what matters the most.”

Keselowski was leading on Lap 244 of the 325-lap event when he reported over the radio that he thought he had lost a cylinder. “I’m blowing up here, guys,” he said. The failure began at the worst possible time, after Keselowski had moved up to 10th in points as they ran on the track, and seemed poised to make the big move he’s been needing to make to get back into the championship conversation.

Keselowski told the No. 2 team that his gauges all looked normal, so the crew decided to have him make as many laps as possible, turning what had been a potential race-winning effort into a salvage job. On Lap 292, the engine had had enough, and Keselowski headed for the garage. Crew chief Paul Wolfe suspected a valve spring had failed, since they found some of them loose inside the vehicle.

“Not much we could do tonight,” Wolfe said. “I felt like the guys worked hard and had a good piece and were doing what we needed to do to put ourselves in a decent position going into Richmond. It’s just something out of our control. It just kind of seems how our year has gone. Anything that can go wrong seems to be going wrong. Some of that is on our end, some of that is on other ends. But overall, if something bad can happen, it seems like it’s happening to us right now. It’s frustrating. It’s hard to continue to keep our head up.”

Indeed, this title defense has been a trying one almost from the start. After ripping off four top-fives in as many races to start the season, the No. 2 team came back to the pack. There was the rear-end housing violation before the Texas race in April that resulted in a 25-point penalty against Keselowski, and another for the vehicle being too low at Dover that cost the driver six more.

Although the No. 2 car has often shown speed — which was certainly the case Sunday night — there’s been an inability to build any consistency on the race track, an inability to get to Victory Lane, and now an engine failure on the heels of a crash last weekend at Bristol.

“At this point it’s not frustration. I’m beyond frustration,” Keselowski said. “At this point, you’re just looking above going, ‘This must be some kind of test to prove how strong we are and what our character is,’ because I believe in the people I’m around. I think they’re doing the right things, but it’s just not working. So I’m reserved to this being a test, and I love challenges, and this is going to be one hell of a challenge.”

Saturday night in Richmond certainly will be. Without a victory, Keselowski is fifth in the Wild Card standings, and three of the drivers ahead of him have race wins. Consider that at this point a year ago, Jeff Gordon was considered a long shot to secure a Chase berth, and he was third in the Wild Card standings with a race victory, which allowed him to nip Kyle Busch for the final berth by three points on the final night of the regular season.

By comparison, Keselowski faces a more difficult road.

“I think at this point we go there, we do everything we can, take every chance we can to win the race, and then I guess see how the points fall out, because I’m not sure who’s where right now if we can get a win,” Wolfe said. “I think we still have a shot at it. it’s not like there’s no hope left. Just go for broke, and what happens, happens. I’m just proud of the guys working hard tonight, and giving us a shot to run up front and lead some laps. We were leading the race when we broke.”

Sunday night, as Kurt Busch and Martin Truex Jr. took strides toward cashing their playoff tickets at the expense of the sport’s reigning champion, that much seemed little consolation indeed.

“What can you do? You can sit here and be mad and stomp your feet and be a jerk about it, but it just broke,” Keselowski said. “That’s racing. It’s kind of been the story of our year.”

READ MORE:

WATCH: Final Laps: AdvoCare 500	WATCH: Victory Lane: Kyle Busch	WATCH: Kahne collected in restart	READ: Bowyer’s trouble at Atlanta