Five key moments from the Kobalt 500

By Jeff Hood

For the AJC

The following are five highlights from Sunday's Kobalt 500:

Lap 1 – Front row starters Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kyle Busch pace the 43-car field during the parade laps. Greg Biffle is forced to start at the rear of the pack in a backup car after wrecking his primary car in practice on Saturday. Teammates Ryan Newman and Tony Stewart also are relegated to the back of the lineup at the start for making engine changes. With a green flag , Earnhardt inches ahead of Busch to take the lead as the field roars into Turn 1. Busch uses the outside lane to his advantage to speed past Earnhardt’s No. 88 Chevrolet to lead the first lap. Juan Pablo Montoya, Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin follow second-place Earnhardt across the start-finish line.

Lap 115 – Martin’s No. 5 Chevrolet suffers a blown tire, which sends the 51-year-old driver into a slide on the frontstretch. The veteran driver is able to keep the car out of the wall and steer it into the grass. The caution period for the incident is timely for Earnhardt, who had just completed a green flag pit stop to address a potential loose wheel issue. Earnhardt, who had lost a lap to the field during his stop, regains the lap as a beneficiary of the wave around the pace car rule. Kurt Busch leads the parade of lead lap cars down pit road for service. Busch’s Penske Racing team gets his No. 2 Dodge back out onto the track ahead of Montoya, Denny Hamlin, Kasey Kahne and Jimmie Johnson.

Lap 239 – Kahne tracks down Kurt Busch and attempts to make the pass for the lead in the bottom groove of Turn 3. Busch regroups and is able to hold off the challenge as the duo crosses the start-finish line. Two of the sport’s top drivers continue to wage a fierce battle over the next five laps with fast-closing Johnson, Denny and Matt Kenseth drawing closer to the front of the field. Kahne’s Ford is finally able to use the low lane around the 1.54-mile quad-oval to his advantage to surge ahead of Busch. Twenty laps later, Kahne’s advantage over Busch has swelled to 2.474 seconds. Johnson, Hamlin, Kenseth, Brad Keselowski and Montoya are the only drivers able to stay within a straightaway of Kahne, who is setting a torrid pace.

Lap 274 – A flurry of green flag pit stops begin for the race leaders. Kurt Busch and Johnson dive onto pit road for four tires and fuel. Johnson is forced to pit two laps sooner than he had hoped because a tire on his No. 48 Chevrolet is going flat. Hamlin pits on lap 266 because he fears he has a tire issue. Race leader Kahne dives onto pit road on lap 275 for service on his Ford. Paul Menard takes advantage of the stops and elects to stay out on the track to lead lap 277. Jeff Burton’s difficult day gets worse after he is docked with his second pit road speeding penalty. Once the stops are complete, Hamlin emerges briefly with the lead.

Lap 323 – With Kurt Busch holding a narrow lead over Montoya, the field goes under caution when Carl Edwards intentionally crashes into Keselowski for retaliation over an earlier incident. Prior to the start of two green-white-checkered flag finishes, Clint Bowyer, Jamie McMurray and Menard opt for two tires. Busch, the first driver in the running order with four fresh tires, lines up fourth on the restart. Busch’s winning move comes at the start of the first overtime session when he drives through an opening between Menard and Bowyer at the wave of the green and surges into the lead. Busch manages to hold off Montoya during the final two-lap dash to notch his third career win in Atlanta.