Sunday was the day it finally all came together for Kyle Busch and Joe Gibbs Racing as the 22 year-old Las Vegas born starlet ensured himself another place in the history books by becoming the first driver to win a points paying Sprint Cup Series race driving a Toyota.
Busch benefited from Carl Edwards late race engine failure to take the glory in Sunday's 325-lap Kobalt Tools 500 at the Atlanta Motor Speedway with his teammate Tony Stewart finishing second to complete Toyota's day of unbridled joy. Denny Hamlin, the final member of the JGR triumvirate, may have been the first driver to take a Cup Series Toyota to victory lane when he won his Gatorade qualifying race at
Daytona but it is Busch's triumph that will go into the record books as the first win for a foreign manufacturer in the premier NASCAR series since 1954.
After a weekend of cold, grey and overcast skies Sunday dawned bright, cloud-free and considerably warmer than the rest of the weekend but not even the glorious weather could entice a sell-out crowd to the 1.54-mile venue with plenty of empty seats in evidence around the grandstands. The view of unfilled seats would not have pleased the NASCAR top brass and unfortunately, neither would the performance of the Goodyear tyres being used.
While there may have been zero tyre failures during the course of the race the cars were visibly nervous in the corners with drivers complaining about the poor handling of their cars all day. The lack of confidence in the super-hard compound may also have contributed to a somewhat drab race that saw a greater than usual disparity in speeds and lots of strung out single file racing rather than the almost continual two and three wide action usually seen at AMS.
![Dale Earnhardt Jr signs autographs for the fans. [Pic Credit image.net]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/405537.jpg)
