Older Busch gets to party

HAMPTON, Ga. --- Kurt Busch's final lap around Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday was in reverse. His younger brother has the bow; now Kurt has the backward victory lap.

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Associated Press

Kurt Busch celebrates his victory in the Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Busch captured his first win of the season a week after younger brother Kyle won at Las Vegas.

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Keeping up with Kyle Busch has been difficult for everyone in the Sprint Cup Series. But in the Busch family, it's been nearly impossible. Kurt's dominating performance evened the score for wins this year for the brothers.

Last week, Kyle Busch won at Las Vegas. After Sunday's race, he pulled beside his older brother's car and yelled on the radio, "Way to keep it in the family!"

Kurt Busch led 234 laps -- 70 more than he led in all of 2008 -- but he needed five laps of overtime to make the winning pass coming to the white flag.

"This was an incredible race; this car was unbelievable," Busch said. "Good things come to those who wait. It's taken us a year and a half to get this COT (Car of Tomorrow) right. This place will chew you up and spit you out."

After winning, he took the checkered flag and made a lap around the 1.54-mile racetrack in reverse.

"I was afraid I was going to swap the back end around," he said. "When you put a car in reverse, it lets the car relax and lets it feel like it did a good job."

Jeff Gordon got close to catching Busch several times in the final 150 miles, but he couldn't get around him. Once the race finished with a green-white-checkered finish, he couldn't get any closer than five car lengths. Gordon now has four top-13 finishes to lead the standings by 43 points over Clint Bowyer.

"This race team is stepping it up," Gordon said. "We've got a fire in our eyes. We're going to win races. We're getting close. We'll keep knocking on the door until we win."

A caution flag on the 67th lap changed the complexion of the race. Many lead-lap cars had already stopped under green-flag conditions when a crewman for Marcos Ambrose's team ran close to the track apron to catch a rolling tire.

NASCAR immediately threw a caution flag to protect him, and that caught 15 cars a lap down. When the race resumed, there were only seven cars on the lead lap.

Busch had a half-mile lead before the bizarre caution period. He stayed on the lead lap and pulled away to quarter-mile leads three different times after that. He led Brian Vickers by 12 car lengths when Robby Gordon blew a tire with four laps to go to bring out a final caution.

All the lead-lap cars stopped, and Carl Edwards won the race off pit road by changing just two tires. Busch and Gordon passed Edwards in the second turn on the first lap. Busch then held off Gordon by five car lengths.

Kyle Busch won eight races last year; Kurt won once. And when Kyle won a week ago at Las Vegas, it put even more pressure on his older brother to keep pace.

With an open date next week, the older Busch brother said he will enjoy his bragging rights for two weeks.

"I'm real proud of him, real happy for him," Kurt Busch said. "To beat him today, to beat guys like Carl Edwards and Jeff Gordon, it's a big thrill."