Kurt Busch Wins Fuel Battle Gamble For Texas Victory

November 8, 2009 7:50 p.m. EST

Fort Worth, Texas (AHN) - The leaders and brothers Kyle and Kurt Busch were playing the fuel mileage battle, and older brother Kurt had just enough gas at the end to win Sunday's Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

Race leader Kyle Busch was out of fuel and had to pull off for gas with three laps to go as big brother drove by for his first win in 30 races and first-ever victory at Texas.

"I saw (Kyle) peel off a couple of laps before us. I knew what we had for fuel mileage. I was confident in my guys. They gave us great numbers,'' said Kurt Busch. "That was the first time that Kyle and I have raced each other hard for a win like this. He was going for a sweep. It was bittersweet for me.''

Kurt Busch jumped from sixth to fourth in the points standings after leading six times for 89 laps.

Kyle Busch, looking for a rare sweep of all three NASCAR races at Texas this weekend, led a race-best 232 of 334 laps and limped home for an 11th-place finish.

"We're disappointed. I thought we had one of the best cars throughout the entire race,'' said Dave Rogers, Kyle Busch's crew chief. "We missed the numbers somewhere. I can't explain why we ran out. We'll take it back to the shop and take a look at it.''

Chasers Jimmie Johnson, Juan Pablo Montoya, Carl Edwards and Brian Vickers all had off days as the rest of the Chasers gained serious points on Johnson, the points leader.

Johnson was caught up in a wreck with Sam Hornish Jr. on Lap 3 and finished 38th, leaving him with only a 73-point lead over teammate Mark Martin.

"It's a still a respectable lead. It's a good position to be in. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time,'' said Johsnon. "We've got two great race tracks for us. We didn't want this by any means, but we'll just go to Phoenix and race.''

Montoya ran 37th, Edwards was 39th and Vickers was 26th, while Martin was the second-highest finishing Chaser behind Busch with a fourth-place run.

Denny Hamlin ran second, Matt Kenseth ran third and Martin was followed by Tony Stewart, Clint Bowyer, Greg Biffle, Jeff Burton and AJ Allmendinger.

"It's not over yet,'' said Martin. "The top-6, I'm still kind of baffled at why everybody is caught up with the top-2. The race is still on for all of us. ''