Kyle Busch had the best car in Saturday's Nicorette 300 Nationwide Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway, but when the checkered flag fell it was Matt Kenseth celebrating in a blustery cold Victory Lane.

Busch, driving the No. 20 Toyota, was cruising at the front of the pack, having led 153 of the first 171 laps when a blown tire knocked him out of contention.

That opened the door for Kenseth, who outran fast-closing fellow Sprint Cup driver Kevin Harvick to get his 24th career Nationwide Series victory and his second at AMS, the first coming in 2004.

Kenseth acknowledged that Busch had the car to beat.

"He had everybody covered," Kenseth said. "There was no way any of us were going to beat him on speed."

Kenseth's car didn't seem to be as fast as Harvick's either, but it was faster on short runs, and that proved to be the deciding factor.

With Busch relegated to the back of the pack in a damaged car, Jeff Burton initially took the lead, but Kenseth passed him with 13 laps to go. Harvick battled back from a slow pit stop and moved into second place and seemed to be running down Kenseth when a crash on Lap 189 involving Eric McClure, Bryan Clauson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. brought out the red flag for an eight-minute clean-up period.

Once the wreckage was cleared, the green flag was displayed for a three-lap dash to the checkered flag. Kenseth led Harvick to the green flag, but the caution flag flew almost immediately for debris related to a blown tire on the No. 6 Ford of Unadilla's David Ragan. That set up a two-lap shootout to decide the outcome.

Kenseth never faltered and took the win over Harvick, Burton, Carl Edwards and Bobby Labonte.

Harvick, who took the series points lead, said the crew of his No. 33 Chevy still has some work to do to be a championship contender.

"We gave it away on that last pit stop," he said, adding that if the race hadn't been slowed twice in the final laps by cautions he believed he could have won anyway. "I'm pretty sure we could have passed [Kenseth]."

Ragan, who wound up 16th, said his late-race problems were because of fuel-flow problems.

"I think we could have had a top-five car today if we would have had the right tires and right pit stops," he said. "But it wasn't meant to be. It could have been a lot worse."

— Staff writer Jeff Hood contributed to this article.