Jamie McMurray Wins Bank of America 500 at Charlotte

CONCORD, N.C. -- Jamie McMurray battled past Kyle Busch on the final restart of the Bank of America 500 Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway and won his third race of the year, stealing the thunder of the drivers in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.

McMurray added the Charlotte fall race to his impressive non-Chase record of 2010, which also includes victories in the Daytona 500 and the Brickyard 400.

Busch finished second after dominating the race and leading 217 of the 334 laps. But Busch had to hold off a determined challenge in the final laps from Jimmie Johnson, who finished third.

Johnson's finish gave him a 41-point lead over Denny Hamlin at the halfway point in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.

Denny Hamlin finished fourth, followed by Greg Biffle.

"As I was catching Kyle at the end of the race, when the caution came out, I really wasn't sure whether we had enough speed to outrun him the last 25 or 30 laps," McMurray said. "But the car was unbelievable those last 25 or 30 laps, it was effortless to drive and it had a lot of speed."

McMurray's victory comes eight years, almost to the day, since his first Cup victory here in the fall race back in 2002. He didn't win another race for almost five more years and until this year has never won more than one race in a season.

But 2010 was McMurray's breakout year -- with his career-changing victory in the Daytona 500, followed by a win the Brickyard 400. Still, he found himself shut out of the Chase because of inconsistent runs, including three DNFs and six finishes of 30th or worse.

But McMurray will take his year, thank you, and beating all the chasers in the midst of the Chase was simply icing on the cake.

McMurray's biggest victim was Busch, who saw his hopes for victory evaporate with a yellow flag for debris with only 24 laps to go.

"Apparently, there was a mouse that ran across the race track," Busch said afterwards.

But McMurray was catching Busch at a fast clip when the caution came out, and was probably fast enough to pass him had the yellow flag not flown.

"I was disappointed when the caution came out," McMurray said. 'I thought that was going to take the win away from us."

When the green flag flew again on lap 313, McMurray got a good run on Busch going through turns one and two and was able to power past him coming off turn two and that was pretty much it, especially when Busch became embroiled in his own battle with Johnson for second.

"It's just very, very frustrating," Busch said. "We got beat on the caution and the ensuing laps until the end. We just didn't quite find out what it took here from last night to tonight."

Said McMurray, "You just drive your heart out and if you have the car, then you are able to make those passes. And if you don't, you don't make the passes. We had a better car than Kyle at the end. He was better at certain stages during the race, but at the end of the race we had the best car."

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