It's beginning to look there are big winners in the Dale Earnhardt Jr. to Hendrick Motorsports driver shuffle. However, it may end up being Kyle Busch and the No. 18 team at Joe Gibbs Racing.

On Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, the 22-year-old Busch was in his element. This on a day when nearly every driver was struggling to keep his car under control and some openly complained about questionable tires.

Johnny Crawford/AJC (ENLARGE)

Kyle Busch celebrates winning the Kobalt Tools 500 in victory lane at the Altanta Motor Speedway. Busch, who drives a Toyota Camry, became the first driver of a foreign manufactured car to win a U.S. stock-car race since 1954.

Alec Thomas/Special to the AJC (ENLARGE)

After taking the obligatory tire-burning spin on the track, Kobalt Tools 500 winner Kyle Busch acknowledges fans by standing on the window of his car. It was the fifth victory for Busch in 118 starts

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Busch drove to the front and scored a dominant win, leading 173 of 325 laps in the Kobalt Tools 500. It was Toyota's first-ever victory in NASCAR's elite Sprint Cup division. It was also the first Cup win for a foreign nameplate since 1954, when Al Keller won at Linden, N.J., in a Jaguar.

It was Busch's first Cup victory since moving to Gibbs after being released from Hendrick to make room for Earnhardt, and his fifth overall. It was the first triumph for his No. 18 team since Bobby Labonte's victory at Homestead in 2003.

Tony Stewart finished second ahead of Earnhardt, Greg Biffle and polesitter Jeff Gordon.

Busch was asked to address the satisfaction he got from winning a race so soon after being dismissed from Hendrick. Instead he talked instead about how much confidence he has in the Gibbs team's ability to build winning race cars.

"It's all about trying to make your stuff better on a daily basis," he said.

Busch's victory capped off a remarkable weekend at AMS where he won Friday's Craftsman Truck Series race, the first time a driver has pulled off that sweep. And if not for a mechanical failure he would likely have won Saturday's Nationwide Series race too.

Busch, who was criticized earlier in his career for being reckless, now seems to be using that driving style to outrun his competitors.

Asked to assess his abilities, he answered: "I'm only as good as I perform and the way I'm performing is great. Whether it's me or the equipment. ... I think it's both."

His performance was even more impressive considering the complaints other drivers voiced about the tire compound Goodyear provided for the race.

Stewart said the tires weren't fit for use on street cars and called on Goodyear to let some other company supply tires.

"They obviously aren't capable of doing it right now," he said.

Earnhardt agreed with Stewart in his criticism of NASCAR's exclusive tire supplier. He said that the tires were responsible for the lack of competitive racing in Sunday's 500.

"We couldn't race side by side," he said. "If we did, we'd wreck."

Said Stewart: "I wouldn't re-run this race for any amount of money in the world."

Earnhardt said his biggest hope is that Goodyear makes a better choice for the upcoming race at Darlington, where the track has just been resurfaced.

"Don't do this at Darlington," Earnhardt said, adding that he planned to attend Monday's tire test there.

"I ain't going to sit here and put up with this," he said.

Goodyear spokesman Justin Fantozzi defended the selection of tire compounds and said avoiding possible bad publicity from blown tires was not a factor in choosing a harder tire compound.

"We don't make tire decisions so we don't have to talk to the media," he said. "We use the safest tire for every race track."

Busch said he didn't focus too much on the tire compound on Sunday.

"We all had the same tires, and they were going to pay somebody to win the race," he said. "I just went out and drove it to the best of my ability."

One thing nearly everyone agreed on was that Busch is a phenomenal talent, especially when it comes to driving a car that's on the brink of being out of control.

"He'll drive a car far beyond what it's capable of doing," Stewart said. "That's what you want out of a driver. He loves driving a loose car."