The celebration everyone knew was coming arrived Saturday night at Lowe's Motor Speedway against a background of exploding fireworks.

The real pyrotechnics, however, were reserved for the racetrack.

Tony Stewart passed Matt Kenseth through turn two on lap 99 of 100 to win the Sprint All-Star Race, his first victory in the annual non-points event and his first as an owner/driver.

Stewart did what he had threatened to do since the beginning of the season. He had parlayed five top-five finishes in the last six races into a second place in the Cup series standings, but victory had eluded the 37-year-old driver nicknamed "Smoke" - until Saturday night.

Stewart, who led only the final two laps, streaked across the finish line 0.971 seconds ahead of Kenseth and pocketed the winner's share of $1,058,656.

Kurt Busch ran third, followed by Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards, Mark Martin and Kyle Busch.

"I can't believe he gave me the bottom," Tony said of his inside pass for the lead. "I just cannot believe he gave me the bottom. But I'll take it. Matt is a guy you can trust. We got to second there, got by the #18 (Kyle Busch) and I thought, 'All right, we have a shot at this thing.'

"We weren't that good until the last run. Darian Grubb (crew chief), I mean he made some awesome calls there at the end to get us where I could drive that thing the way I could. Man, it was fast."

Adjustments during the ten-minute break before the final segment made Kenseth's car better but not good enough to keep Stewart behind him.

"We were too loose all night, and we were really slow on restarts," said Kenseth, who led the field to the green flag with five laps remaining after caution for debris in turn three slowed the field for the final time. "For long runs we were pretty good… During the break we had to tighten the car up a lot, which we did - put more air in the tires and did all the things we needed to do for a short run.

"It was actually pretty good for five or six laps, but with all the short runs and cautions (three after the start of the final segment) and getting the body banged in a little bit, it just hurt it, and with three or four (laps) to go, it started getting really tight and wouldn't turn at all that last lap. And Tony just rolled on by."