“The Deuce is back!” shouted Kurt Busch over in-car radio after winning the Kobalt Tools 500 at the lighting fast Atlanta Motor Speedway. The 21st Sprint Cup victory of his career, Busch was referring to his N0. 2 Penske Racing-prepared Miller Lite Dodge Charger.

“I’m just so happy to bring this car here to Victory Lane,” he said a few minutes later after climbing from the cockpit. “We got it right and really hit the marks. I’m really happy to bring it home.

Busch - won the spring race at the 1.54-mile track for the second year in a row - beat Matt Kenseth across the finish line stripe by half a second claim the win. Juan 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 where he was likely screamed at.

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.

Jimmie Johnson, the four-time defending Cup champion, was coming off wins at California and Las Vegas. He was very much in contention in the race, running as high as third, but a bad pit stop and a scrape with Ryan Newman cost Johnson a chance to become the first driver since 2007 to make it three in a row.

Denny Hamlin cut a tire with 36 laps to go -- one of about a dozen drivers taken out by tire problems -- and Busch emerged from the pits out front.

As the race headed into its final laps, Montoya reeling Busch in, but then everything went upside down – literally!

The Edwards-Keselowski scrap with three laps to go forced the first attempt at an overtime finish. Busch came to the restart trailing a couple of drivers who took only two tires in the pits, but a brilliant move shot him right back to the front.

On the restart, Busch hung onto the rear end of Clint Bowyer's car, then dove to the inside and split both him and Menard heading through the first turn. Busch appeared to be pulling away, but Jamie McMurray got into Bowyer before the field could take the white flag, leading to a seven-car pileup and another try for a clean finish.

"We've got to win this race three times, maybe even four times," a frustrated Busch said on his radio.

There wasn't much drama on the next restart. Busch got away cleanly, zipped around the track two more times at more than 190 mph and took the checkered flag. He then returned to the flagstand, grabbed the symbol of his win and headed off on a victory lap in reverse.