Kyle Busch Rolls to Overdue Bristol Win

In the last two Sprint Cup races at Bristol Motor Speedway Kyle Busch has lead a combined 793 laps out of 1000 but only made it to Victory Lane once. Today Kyle Busch finished what he started last August and made it all the way to Victory Lane to claim the 2009 Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Qualifying

Mark Martin scored his second pole in a row for his Hendrick Motorsports team.Martin comes into today's race 35th in points holding down the final guaranteed starting spot. Ryan Newman, Jimmie Johnson Greg Biffle and Kasey Kahne rounded out the top five.

Drop Of The Green

Mark Martin got a good jump on the start and lead lap one in single file ahead of Ryan Newman, Greg Biffle, Jimmie Johnson and David Reutimann. Ryan Newman moved past Martin on lap three to take over the top spot.

Johnson moved past Martin ten laps later to hold down the second spot. The leaders stayed in single file throughout the early going and remained pretty much in this order.

Storylines

The 2009 Food City 500 was an unusually quiet Bristol race. There was no close finish, no fireworks, no angry outbursts. This was as straightforward as Bristol races come.

In other words... yawn.

Chasing The Checkers

The seventh caution of the race flew with 58 laps to go which set up the final round of pit stops for the leaders. Kyle Busch, Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin entered the pits in the lead.

Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin got off pit road first with Kasey Kahne and Mark Martin in line behind them. Jimmie Johnson fell all the way to fifth on pit road.

Kyle Busch got a solid restart and maintained the lead over teammate Hamlin. Johnson got around Martin and Kahne on his march to the front just as the caution flew again with seven laps to go.

The "Overdrive" finish gave Hamlin and Johnson a late shot at the win but Kyle Busch cruised to the comfortable win.

Top Ten

1. Kyle Busch
2. Denny Hamlin
3. Jimmie Johnson
4. Jeff Gordon
5. Kasey Kahne
6. Mark Martin
7. Ryan Newman
8. Jeff Burton
9. Juan Montoya
10. Marcos Ambrose

The Points

Jeff Gordon laid down another top five and maintained the point lead. Clint Bowyer lost a spot to third while Kurt Busch moved up to second. At the bottom of the top twelve Chase spots Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin moved into the top twelve replacing Brian Vickers and Greg Biffle.

The top twelve are now:

1. Jeff Gordon
2. Kurt Busch -76
3. Clint Bowyer -79
4. Kyle Busch -85
5. Carl Edwards -129
6. Kasey Kahne -155
7. Tony Stewart -161
8. Denny Hamlin -163
9. Jimmie Johnson -167
10. Matt Kenseth -184
11. David Reutimann -187
12. Kevin Harvick -210