Kyle Busch won Saturday's Budweiser Shootout after passing Tony Stewart a few yards from the finish line at Daytona.
Closest finish in history of Sprint Cup curtain-raiser
Kyle Busch twice fought back from near disaster to win Saturday's Budweiser Shootout with a slingshot move past Tony Stewart a few yards from the finish line at Daytona International Speedway.
Starting from the back of the field in a backup car - necessitated by a wreck in Friday's practice - Busch won NASCAR's curtain-raiser for the first time.
His winning margin over Stewart was 0.013 seconds, the closest in Shootout history, in a green-white-chequered-flag finish that took the race seven laps beyond its scheduled distance.
Marcos Ambrose recovered from a pair of wrecks to finish third, followed by Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin. Greg Biffle, Ryan Newman, Clint Bowyer, Carl Edwards and Juan Pablo Montoya completed the top 10.
Violent
Stewart had just taken the lead on lap 74 of the scheduled 75 when a violent wreck in Turn 4 sent Jeff Gordon's No. 24 Chevrolet barrel-rolling through the corner towards the pit entrance.
Gordon was following Kyle Busch on the backstretch, and contact between the cars turned Busch's Toyota onto the apron.
Busch made a dramatic save for the second time in the race, but Gordon slid up the track into the Chevrolets of Kurt Busch and Jamie McMurray.
As all three cars hit the outside wall, Jimmie Johnson's Chevrolet nosed beneath the right rear bumper of Gordon's car and turned it upside down.
The wreck left 11 cars on the lead lap and sent the race to overtime.
Busch's first close call came on lap 48 when he twice turned sideways off the bumper of Johnson, and twice saved the car from calamity despite running onto the apron in Turn 2.
Seven laps later, contact between the cars of polesitter Martin Truex Jr., Ambrose and Joey Logano eliminated Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick and Matt Kenseth.
Eventful
Greg Biffle led at the resulting lap 62 restart followed by team-mates Gordon and Johnson and reigning Sprint Cup champion Stewart.
The first wreck of an eventful race came on lap eight when David Ragan's Ford hit Paul Menard's Chevrolet with the cars of Kasey Kahne, Denny Hamlin, Matt Kenseth, Montoya, Michael Waltrip, Jeff Burton and Gordon also involved.
Rule changes introduced during the off-season changed the character of racing, with fewer cars hooking up in tandem.
Busch's victory was also the first in a NASCAR race car using electronic fuel injection, which was introduced to the Sprint Cup this season.
