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For the thrid time in as many spring races at Richmond, Kyle Busch takes the checkered flag. He beat his teammate Denny Hamlin by a second and a half. It's the tenth time JGR has finished one two. The two Joe Gibbs racing teammates were the class of the field. Thrid place Kasey Kahne was 10 seconds back. David Regan, and Carl Edwards round out the top 5.
"This is pretty awesome," said Busch. "It's so fun to win these Sprint Cup races. This race tonight was a good one. We had a pretty good car and we knew if we can work through traffic better than the 11, we would have a shot at a win."
The run was the first top five for Hamlin since Texas last fall. The 11 team has struggled in 2011, with just one top 10 finish this year.
"Just really got beat by our teammate tonight," said Hamlin. "We were pretty even on the track he was just a little bit better on restarts. He drove a good race."
Kahne's third place finish, impressive considering he is coming off knew surgery on the by wee.
"I feel great," said Kahne. "It was the kind of run we needed as we head off to Darlington."
Carl Edwards remains the points leader. Emporia native Clint Bowyer finished 6th and is up to 7th in the points.
There was also an interesting tangle up between Ryan Newman and pole sitter Juan Pablo Montoya. After the race, Montoya left the track with out commenting. Newman went straight to the NASCAR hauler looking for some "justice." The two tangled at least 3 times on the track before the 42 was warned by NASCAR to "stay away" from the 39, Newman finished 20th, Montoya 29th.
