Although he registered a poor starting position, Kyle Busch won on Sunday the NASCAR Sprint Cup Toyota/Save Mart 350, at the Infineon Raceway. This is 23-year-old Busch’s first win in seven road course starts and the series-best fifth of the Sprint Cup season.

In the 112 lap race with incidents scattered along, the present-day points leader meticulously advanced from Row 15 to the winner’s position, thus marking his fourth NASCAR race appearance on the hilly Sonoma County road course. Busch took advantage of an early pit stop on Lap 29 that helped him leap over previous race leaders Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards, who pit stopped two laps later. 1.716 seconds behind the Las Vegas native was David Gilliland who came in second and five-time race winner Jeff Gordon was third.

Starting 30th, Busch led 76 of the laps on the way to his 10th career victory and extended his lead in the standings to 103 points over Jeff Burton, who managed only a place 13. Clint Bowyer placed fourth and Casey Mears closed the top five segment. Defending Infineon champion Juan Pablo Montoya finished sixth.

After he overtook Jamie McMurray, it looked like Stewart was going to challenge Busch for second place on lap 105. But soon after, Stewart was bamboozled by a crash involving three cars in Turn 7 that was caused by Kevin Harvick. He took a lot of speed into the turn and clipped McMurray’s right rear bumper. McMurray hit Stewart after being pushed forward.

All three spun in succession as Busch drove pass them untouched. Stewart managed to end the race on the 10th position, and McMurray on the 18th.

Kyle Busch won 11 times this season including his Nationwide and Craftsman Truck series participation and gave Joe Gibbs Racing its third victory at Infineon, after wins by Tony Stewart in 2001 and 2005.

Standing as one of the most detested drivers in NASCAR, Busch heard a few boos during pre-race introductions. But at the end, as he did a few tricks such as burnouts and doughnuts, he collected nothing but cheers from the grandstand.