Kahne wins Fontana Busch thriller

The closing stages saw a superb side-by-side battle between Kahne and Paul Menard, who had made their last pit stops with 52 and 54 laps remaining respectively and moved to the front when the leaders stopped with 18 laps to go.

Kahne and Menard swapped the lead four times in the final ten laps before Kahne inched ahead on the penultimate lap. While he made his fuel last all the way to the chequered flag, Menard's car ran dry and slowed on the exit of Turn 2.

"It was a great battle," said Kahne. "We were just trying hard to save fuel and race each other and see what we could do. It was a lot of fun."

That allowed points leader Kevin Harvick, who had followed a similar strategy, to grab second, eight seconds adrift. Along with polesitter Clint Bowyer and early spinner Kyle Busch, Harvick had been a key protagonist in the lead dice in the opening laps before disappearing into the midfield as his car's handling went awry.

"We stole this one," Harvick admitted. "My US Coast Guard Chevrolet got really, really loose in the middle of the race. At the end it came back pretty good. We did what we needed to do."

Harvick only just held off the unlucky Mark Martin, who dominated the middle stages of the race and led by as much as four seconds at one stage. No-one had an answer for Martin's pace between laps 39 and 131, but then his final pit stop dropped the veteran behind a dozen fuel gamblers. He carved back through the field to take third.

"It was one of the nicest cars I've ever driven," reckoned Martin. "This was one of those nights where things could have worked in our favour, but they didn't."

Menard crawled home fourth ahead of Ashton Lewis.

"We knew we were going to be really close, but with one more lap of caution I think we would have made it," said Menard. "I don't know if I could have got around him (Kahne) but it would have been close..."

Results

Pos  Driver            Make      Laps
 1.  Kasey Kahne       Dodge      150
 2.  Kevin Harvick     Chevrolet  150
 3.  Mark Martin       Ford       150
 4.  Paul Menard       Chevrolet  150
 5.  Ashton Lewis      Ford       150
 6.  Tony Stewart      Chevrolet  150
 7.  Matt Kenseth      Ford       150
 8.  Jon Wood          Ford       150
 9.  Robby Gordon      Chevrolet  150
10.  Jay Sauter        Chevrolet  150
11.  Kyle Busch        Chevrolet  150
12.  Carl Edwards      Ford       150
13.  Clint Bowyer      Chevrolet  150
14.  Burney Lamar      Chevrolet  150
15.  Denny Hamlin      Chevrolet  150
16.  Casey Mears       Dodge      150
17.  Jamie McMurray    Dodge      150
18.  Stacy Compton     Ford       150
19.  Reed Sorenson     Dodge      150
20.  David Reutimann   Dodge      150
21.  Jimmie Johnson    Chevrolet  150
22.  P.J. Jones        Dodge      150
23.  Greg Biffle       Ford       149
24.  Jason Leffler     Chevrolet  149
25.  Scott Wimmer      Ford       149
26.  David Green       Ford       149
27.  Todd Kluever      Ford       149
28.  Regan Smith       Ford       149
29.  John Andretti     Ford       149
30.  Mike Bliss        Chevrolet  149
31.  Johnny Sauter     Chevrolet  149
32.  Stanton Barrett   Chevrolet  149
33.  Stephen Leicht    Ford       149
34.  Mike Wallace      Dodge      148
35.  Kertus Davis      Chevrolet  148
36.  Kenny Wallace     Ford       148
37.  Brad Keselowski   Chevrolet  147
38.  Carlos Contreras  Dodge      146
39.  Jerry Robertson   Chevrolet  145
40.  J.J. Yeley        Chevrolet  93
41.  David Ragan       Ford       92
42.  Paul Tracy        Chevrolet  92
43.  Auggie Vidovich   Dodge      6