Kasey Kahne took advantage of Tony Stewart’s misfortune with two laps to go and went on to win the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
Stewart appeared to be on his way to his first win of the season until a tire went down two laps from the finish.
That allowed Kahne to speed by and grab his second straight Cup win at LMS, following up his All-Star Race win of last week.
It was Kahne's second career Coca-Cola 600 victory and moved him up to 12th in the series point standings.
"We were one of the best cars all night long," Kahne said. "They had us beat at times tonight and at times we had them beat. Hopefully, we've got it turned around now. It's a big night."
The win made Kahne the sixth driver in history to win both the all-star event and the 600 joining Darrell Waltrip in 1985, Davey Allison in 1991, Dale Earnhardt in 1993, Jeff Gordon in 1997 and Jimmie Johnson in 2003.
The victory alsp marked his first triumph in 53 points races with his last win at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in the fall of 2006.
Greg Biffle rallied back to finish second to Kahne, just as he did in the All-Star Race.
“It’s tough that Kasey beat us two weeks in a row,” said Biffle. "But I’m happy with the way we bounced back from being 43rd at Darlington to finish second here.”
Kyle Busch was second, Jeff Gordon fourth and Dale Earnhardt, Jr., who was leading the race around the midway point until he cut a tire and hit the wall, rebounded to finish fifth.
Busch had to do some rebounding of his own when he fell a lap down with a tire problem and also dealt with a bad battery.
“I thought my guys did an awesome job tonight on pit road with the battery switch,” Busch said.
Stewart wound up 18th and suffered another devastating night at Lowe's Motor Speedway, where he led 55 laps in last year's Coca-Cola 600 but lost out on a fuel mileage ending to the race.
Stewart stormed into his hauler after the race and crew chief Greg Zippadelli tried to explain what had happened.
"It’s just stupid. I don’t know,” Zipadelli said. “We must have run over something, small leak or something. But I’ll just say we lost a tire with a 5 1/2 -second lead. I don’t even know what to say, I’m so frustrated. I feel bad for everybody.
“All day we did a good job. We knew we needed to keep our car where it was and it would be good at the end and we did exactly that, and we just fell short.”
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series now heads to Dover International Speedway next Sunday afternoon.
