LOUDON, N.H. — Tony Stewart put on the show, but Kurt Busch, with his gambler’s strategy, carried off the winner’s laurels in Sunday’s rain-shortened Lenox Industrial Tools 301 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Stewart came from 28th to lead 132 of the 284 completed laps, including all but 12 circuits after lap 141, but his need to pit for fuel with a rain storm brewing relegated him to a 13th-place finish.
As the field circled the track under the yellow flag with only 17 laps remaining, the skies burst, putting Busch, one of seven drivers who hadn’t pitted, in the catbird’s seat.
When the race was declared official a few minutes later, Busch had his first victory of the season, with Michael Waltrip, J.J. Yeley, Martin Truex, Jr. and Elliott Sadler rounding out the top five.
Reed Sorenson and Casey Mears were sixth and seventh, ahead of the first driver who pitted in the regular sequence, Denny Hamlin. Jimmie Johnson and Bobby Labonte completed the top 10.
Busch’s Penske Racing Miller Lite Dodge team, along with owner-driver Waltrip’s NAPA Toyota and Yeley’s DLP Toyota, were in the same boat, so to speak. All were continuing mediocre seasons with mid-pack runs on the flat mile track. When the opportunity came to top off their tanks with just more than 80 laps to go, they had nothing to lose.
By contrast, the frontrunners and Chase contenders — Stewart, Johnson, Hamlin, 11th-place finisher Jeff Gordon and company, were forced to play the conventional strategy of pitting on schedule. All pitted for full service on lap 205 after A.J. Allmendinger’s engine erupted in flames, and all ignored the window created for the others by Aric Almirola’s spin after half a dozen laps under green.
Green-flag stops were approaching when David Ragan and Jamie McMurray wrecked on lap 272. The eight cars, which did not pit, cycled to the lead with Busch at the head of the line.
The winner offered no apology after leading only three green-flag laps before Sam Hornish, Jr. and Clint Bowyer tangled to bring out the final caution, which was quickly followed by rain.

CELEBRATION: Kurt Busch’s Penske Racing teammates lift him into the air after Sunday’s event at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. (Jim McIsaac/Getty Images Photo)

“I felt it would have been a great duel down to the end with everybody on old tires. Everybody would have been slipping and sliding,” Busch said. “This was more a fuel strategy to get to lap 301 than it was with the rain. So, the rain aided us, yet I felt we had the track position. I felt like my fire and desire was going to overcome anything today to get to victory lane.”
Crew chief Pat Tryson seconded his driver’s insistence that they won by sound strategy, not intervention from the elements.
“To be honest, we were rooting for it not to rain because we had the fuel mileage to make it to the end and other guys were going to have to pit,” Tryson declared. “It just kind of worked out that they all pitted and then it rained.”
“The rain isn’t why I’m sitting here,” said Waltrip, who posted his best finish since 2005. “The reason why I’m sitting here is that we got an opportune caution late in the race and took advantage of it.”
Yeley, recording his second-career top five, was more subdued. “We had enough fuel to make it to the end,” he confirmed. “I found the way to the back door, so I could sneak in today.”
Stewart, meanwhile, was left to contemplate his sixth-consecutive finish outside the top 10 and his failure to become the first driver to score a Saturday/Sunday sweep at Loudon after seizing the lead, thanks in part to a two-tire stop, the same strategy that won the Camping World RV Sales 200 Nationwide Series race 24 hours earlier.
It was slight consolation that he led his 10,000th lap in Sprint Cup competition just after the halfway point and that he actually gained two places in the standings, from 11th to ninth.   
The winner’s brother, Sprint Cup point-leader Kyle Busch, had a miserable day. He qualified 27th, never looked like more than a marginal top-15 car, and was rammed under the final caution by Juan Pablo Montoya.
Busch pitted and dropped to the tail of the lead lap, worth 27th place. Montoya was docked two laps for rough driving and finished 32nd.
Kyle Busch retained his lead in the standings by 64 points over 12th-place finisher Jeff Burton.
For the 284 completed laps, Kurt Busch averaged 106.719 miles per hour and won $204,950. There were seven caution periods for 33 laps. The full field was running as late as 200 laps and 39 cars remained on the track at the soggy conclusion.