Kenseth wins Nationwide at Atlanta

Kenseth got by Jeff Burton on the penultimate restart and then had his mirrors filled with Kevin Harvick's machine in a green-white-chequer finish, but he was able to fend off the attack from the former Nationwide Series champion to take his first win of the season.

"I knew Kyle opened the door for everybody," Kenseth said. "There was no way anybody was going to beat him on speed. But he kind of opened the door, and we were able to get to the front and take advantage of it."

Harvick was disappointed to have come so close to win his first race driving one of his own cars, but probably lost it on his final pitstop when he dropped from the lead down to sixth place.

He moved up again and easily went by Burton before the penultimate restart, but two laps were not enough to have a clear shot at Kenseth.

"I'm really disappointed," said Harvick. "We gave it away on pit road there at the end. When you get handed these situations, you've got to capitalize on them. I think we were definitely better than the 17 (Kenseth). He was better than us on restarts, but we could catch him pretty good after a few laps. We just didn't get that one long run."

But without a doubt he could not be more disappointed than Kyle Busch. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver led 153 out of 189 laps but a left front tyre blew up 24 laps from the end entering turn one. His car hit the wall and was badly damaged on the right hand side, ending every chance he had of taking his second victory of the weekend.

"Obviously we had the dominant car," a furious Busch said after the race. "Farm Bureau and Toyota should be real proud, I'm just sorry about the fact that we blew another right-front tyre."

Jeff Burton finished third ahead of Carl Edwards, with Bobby Labonte rounding up the top five. Brad Kaselowski had yet another good race for JR Motorsports finishing sixth, ahead of a surprise Mike Bliss in seventh.

The race was fluent for most of the distance until the final ten laps when Dale Earnhardt Jr made contact with a spinning Eric McLure at turn two. Ganassi's Bryan Clauson then crashed hard into McLure's machine, forcing the race to be red flagged to clear the debris on the backstretch.

Then with only two laps remaining the caution came out for the final time due to debris in turn one, following contact with the wall by David Ragan, who got tapped from behind on the restart, having ran well within the top ten for most of the race.

Dario Franchitti spun after making contact with his teammate Brian Clauson at the exit of turn four on lap 29, but was able to remain on the lead lap. However, his car suffered from the impact against Clauson's and the Scot could only finish a distant 28th and five laps from the winner, although he still holds on to the lead in the rookie standings.

Kevin Harvick has jumped to the top of the Nationwide series points ahead of Carl Edwards, while Kyle Busch has dropped to third place. Former points leader Tony Stewart did not compete this weekend.

Pos  Driver                Car        Laps
 1.  Matt Kenseth          Ford        198
 2.  Kevin Harvick         Chevrolet   198
 3.  Jeff Burton           Chevrolet   198
 4.  Carl Edwards          Ford        198
 5.  Bobby Labonte         Chevrolet   198
 6.  Brad Keselowski       Chevrolet   198
 7.  Mike Bliss            Dodge       198
 8.  Jason Leffler         Toyota      198
 9.  Kasey Kahne           Dodge       197
10.  David Reutimann       Toyota      198
11.  Marcos Ambrose        Ford        198
12.  Kelly Bires           Ford        198
13.  Jamie McMurray        Ford        198
14.  Jason Keller          Chevrolet   198
15.  Dale Earnhardt Jr     Chevrolet   198
16.  David Ragan           Ford        198
17.  Mike Wallace          Toyota      197
18.  Steve Wallace         Chevrolet   197
19.  Clint Bowyer          Chevrolet   197
20.  Cale Gale             Chevrolet   197
21.  Greg Biffle           Ford        197
22.  Brian Vickers         Toyota      197
23.  Bobby Hamilton Jr     Ford        197
24.  Kyle Busch            Toyota      197
25.  Kenny Wallace         Dodge       197
26.  Johnny Sauter         Chevrolet   197
27.  Kevin Lepage          Ford        196
28.  Dario Franchitti      Dodge       193
29.  Bryan Clauson         Dodge       187
30.  David Stremme         Chevrolet   186
31.  Brian Keselowski      Chevrolet   185
32.  Robert Richardson II  Chevrolet   185
33.  Eric McClure          Chevrolet   179
34.  D.J. Kennington       Dodge       177
35.  Brad Coleman          Ford        168
36.  Brett Rowe            Chevrolet   135
37.  Derrike Cope          Chevrolet    42
38.  Johnny Chapman        Chevrolet    28
39.  Larry Gunselman       Chevrolet    24
40.  Mike Harmon           Chevrolet    23
41.  Morgan Shepherd       Dodge        19
42.  Kertus Davis          Chevrolet    11
43.  Dwayne Leik           Chevrolet     8