Kevin Harvick struggled to eleventh place ahead of polesitter Earnhardt Jr, who fell off the lead lap in the final long green flag run after leading the first 15 laps of the race. David Ragan kept his nose clean again for a 13th place finish followed by his teammate Jamie McMurray, the unsponsored David Gilliland and the only others drivers to finish just one lap behind Edwards, Brian Vickers, Paul Menard and Travis Kvapil.
Further down the finishing order things were even more perplexing for some of the drivers, who found out first hand that overtaking in the new generation of cars is just as tricky as it was with the old style chassis.
Casey Mears and Kurt Busch both finished two laps down in 22nd and 23rd places respectively with Patrick Carpentier a further two laps back in 28th. Sam Hornish Jr was six laps down in 32nd but still did just enough to squeeze his #77 Penske team back into the top 35 in owner standings.
Michael McDowell was a cautious 33rd following his massive qualifying crash although his rookie woes paled in comparison to those of Jeff Gordon, who remains winless in Texas after one of his worst races ever.
Starting 18th Gordon fell back as soon as the green flag waved with a car that refused to handle properly and found himself running 33rd and one lap behind the leaders by the lap 70 mark. 40 laps later and the Texas fans witnessed an extremely rare occurrence as Gordon lost control of his car in turn four and smacked the wall, doing enough damage to send him to the garage and give him just his second last place finish of his 16-year Sprint Cup career.
With the one-mile Phoenix International Raceway next on the horizon Jeff Burton continues to lead the points standings by nearly 60 points over his Richard Childress Racing teammate Harvick with Kyle Busch third and Earnhardt Jr fourth. Thanks to his win Edwards moves back into the top ten while Gordon slips back to 14th.
![Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards in Atlanta. [Pic Credit image.net]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/416208.jpg)
