Stewart has been the dominant driver in each of the last two spring races at Bristol and Sunday would be no different as the double Cup Champ proceeded to lead a race-high 267 laps with only his teammate Denny Hamlin able to offer any real resistance.
Hamlin led for nearly 100 laps during the middle portion of the race, taking top spot during a round of yellow flag pitstops on lap 198 that followed the only major multi car accident of the day triggered when Dario Franchitti and Jamie McMurray collided on the entrance to turn two in heavy traffic. Among those caught up in the subsequent melee were Bobby Labonte, Ryan Newman, Ken Schrader, Kyle Petty and Paul Menard although thanks to the structural rigidity of the current chassis, everyone was able to continue racing after various delays fixing the damage.
Hamlin may have been able to keep teammate Stewart at bay for the rest of the afternoon such was the pace of the #11 FedEx Toyota but he would suffer difficulties of his own o n lap 278 when Menard and Franchitti collided again just in front of the leader. Juan Montoya couldn't slow his car as quickly as Hamlin as they tried threading their way through the spinning cars and rammed the rear end of the #11 entry, which in turn made contact with Casey Mears, forcing Hamlin to the pits several times to repair the damage and dropping him to 15th position.
It was then the turn of Atlanta winner and defending Food City 500 winner Kyle Busch to take up the cudgels at the head of the field although his lead lasted all of seven laps before a bizarre steering problem forced the #18 Toyota into the outside wall coming off turn two on lap 291, bring out the caution flags again and dropping the current points leader several laps off the pace.
![Clint Bowyer - Jack Daniels Chevrolet [pic credit: GM media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/289103.jpg)
