Associated Press

HAMPTON, Ga. – Kurt Busch won again at Atlanta Motor Speedway, pulling away on a second restart Sunday after a couple of wild wrecks to capture the Kobalt Tools 500.

Busch won the spring race at the 1.54-mile trioval for the second year in a row, beating Matt Kenseth to the line by nearly half a second. Juan Pablo Montoya was third, followed by Kasey Kahne and Paul Menard.

The race went 16 laps past its scheduled 325 because of two big crashes. The first came when Carl Edwards, running 156 laps behind, clipped Brad Keselowski and sent him flying toward the grandstands upside down. Keselowski was OK, but NASCAR ordered Edwards to park his car and summoned him to its trailer for a tongue-lashing.

On the first attempt at a green-white-checkered finish, another crash took out seven cars coming through turns three and four. Finally, they got in two clean laps, and it was Busch all the way for his third career win in Atlanta.

“Even with all the restarts, I thought we had the strongest car,” said Busch, who claimed his 21st career win and snapped Jimmie Johnson’s two-race winning streak.

Keselowski clipped Edwards early in the race, which sent him smashing into Joey Logano. Edwards spent much of the day in the garage, but returned to take out his frustration in what appeared to be an intentional tap on Keselowski coming across the start-finish line.

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