In the best Car of Tomorrow restrictor plate race yet Kyle Busch emerged from a lap down to win Sunday's Aaron's 499 at the Talladega Superspeedway.

Following on from last October's boring UAW-Ford 500 at the monstrous 2.66-mile track and then this February's rather insipid Daytona 500 the new chassis platform got its first major workout on an overcast day in Alabama on Sunday.

Drivers made full use of the extra rigidity of the new generation of cars with some fearsome bump drafting and the usually rabid Talladega grandstands were treated to some shining examples of how the new cars are more driveable than their forbearers with several significant, if temporary, two and three car breakaways at the head of the field.

But as usual when crunch time came no less than 30 cars went into the final lap almost as one and after an relatively clean afternoon's racing with numerous near misses and close calls, all hell broke loose within two miles of the chequered flag.

For most of the day the race bore resemblance to the predicted Hendrick versus Gibbs battle with the Toyota's of Denny Hamlin and Tony Stewart dicing for supremacy with the Hendrick Chevrolet of Dale Earnhardt Jr. Stewart, with help from Hamlin, took the lead from polesitter Joe Nemechek on the opening lap and remained in front for the majority of the first 40 laps. However this would be the sole period of relative calm during the race and by the time the white flag fell to signal the start of the 188th and final lap both Stewart, Hamlin and Earnhardt Jr would find themselves out of the fight for victory.

In a race that saw 52 official lead changes among 19 different drivers the two Gibbs drivers and Earnhardt Jr led for a combined 144 laps with Hamlin apparently able to bump draft anybody else to the front using the outside groove and Earnhardt Jr already showing some mastery of the returning slingshot manoeuvre.

There were other constant players at or near the head of the pack notably David Ragan, Travis Kvapil, Paul Menard, David Gilliland, Juan Montoya and Dario Franchitti's replacement David Stremme but eventual winner Busch was not among them for most of the day after a costly mistake on pit road during the first of two rounds of green flag pitstops cost the driver of the #18 Toyota more than a full lap.

Coming down pit road on lap 60 Busch completely missed his pit stall and had to do an extra lap before taking fuel and tyres, the additional time spent at pit road speed meant that Busch lost his place in the draft and quickly fell a lap behind the leaders. However Busch sensibly tucked in directly behind the frontrunners as soon as he went a lap down and was able to stay with the lead draft and maintain his position as the first car one lap down. That meant that when the caution flag waved on lap 116 he was in position to take advantage of the lucky dog pass and regain his place on the lead lap.

The lap 116 caution was only the second of the race at that point with both yellows coming when Roush-Fenway Racing cars suffered front tyre failures and hit the turn four wall. First to go was Matt Kenseth after less than 20 laps while on lap 116 it was Carl Edwards' turn on a day where, Ragan aside, the Roush-Fenway freight train was somewhat derailed.