Clint Bowyer was celebrating in victory lane at Charlotte Motor Speedway after Saturday night's Bank of America 500 Sprint Cup race under the floodlights ended in success for Bowyer and the Michael Waltrip Racing team.

The key to Bowyer's success was making his fuel last all the way from his final pit stop on lap 278 to the finish 56 laps later, despite the last hundred laps of the race enjoying an uninterrupted caution-free period of racing. Denny Hamlin and Jimmie Johnson similarly managed to squeeze enough out of the tank to make it home in second and third places respectively, while everyone else had to make an extra pit stop before the finish.

Ironically, Bowyer's team uses the same Toyota Racing Development engines as Joe Gibbs Racing does, after their driver Kyle Busch heavily criticised the company for letting him down on the engine's fuel conservation two weeks ago at Dover, a race that Keselowski had been able to go on and win on fuel.

While Busch was still unable to match the fuel-saving strategies of Bowyer or his JGR team mate Hamlin this week, he still did enough to finish in fifth place as one of only six drivers to finish on the lead lap at the end of over three hours of night racing on the 1.5-mile oval track. The others were Greg Biffle (fourth) and that irrepressible veteran Mark Martin (sixth.)

Biffle had won pole position with a new lap record on Thursday with Martin joining him on the front row; Ryan Newman had been set to start from third place alongside Bowyer, but had to have an engine change after qualifying that meant he was dropped to the back of the field as the race got underway shortly before 8pm local time.

Biffle and Martin went side-by-side for the first four laps of the race before Biffle finally established his supremacy at the front, and there was a caution on lap 12 as Matt Kenseth went for a harmless spin out of turn 4. More serious was the frontstretch crash involving Jeff Burton and David Ragan at the restart attempt on lap 15, which also inflicted some significant damage to the nose of the #14 of reigning champion Tony Stewart in the resulting knock-on pile-up through the midfield. While all those involved lost time in the pits for repairs, they were all able to rejoin the race again.

Finally the race got back to green flag running on lap 22 with Biffle leading Bowyer who had managed to just get ahead of Martin in that shortlived first restart attempt. Bowyer was soon bumped down by Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch and by his own team mate Martin Truex Jr., and with so many Toyota drivers massing behind him it must have dawned on the Ford-powered Biffle that he might not have the right engine for the task this week.

There had been concern about some right side damage to Paul Menard's car from that earlier restart incident, but on lap 36 the question became academic when he slapped the wall in turn 4 and spun out, putting the matter beyond doubt and bringing out the third caution of the evening. It would prove to be the last yellow for an incident, the only two remaining caution periods being triggered by debris.

Brad Keselowski and Marcos Ambrose opted not to pit under the current caution and stayed out to assume the lead ahead of Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick and Mark Martin. Ambrose briefly took the lead despite his car carrying damage from that earlier restart incident, but it was Keselowski who really maximised the moment to reclaim the position through turns 1 and 2 and settle into the top spot for his first significant stint at the top of the scoring post.

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