Kyle Busch outduels rival Edwards

Notch another victory for Kyle Busch in his rivalry with Carl Edwards.

Busch gave the crowd a show last night in the Lipton Tea 250 by outgunning Edwards on a pair of late restarts. It was an aggressively fought final 50 laps, though nowhere near as contentious as the two rivals had raced this was a gentlemanly performance compared with their dual at Bristol in 2008.

Edwards built up a big lead, and nearly had a five-second edge on the field when the caution flag came out on lap 220 to even up the field and set up a contentious final 30 laps.

That's where Busch shone on the restart, claiming a lead he wouldn't relinquish.

"He smoked me on the restarts," Edwards said. "I did everything I could. That car he's got there runs really well on the restarts."

Busch spun his car out near the start-finish line as the decidedly anti-Busch crowd saluted him with a single finger. That was all ignored in victory lane.

"We beat our fiercest competitor tonight, and that makes it even better," Busch said. "It's always great to come out here and race."

The third-place finisher was Matt Kenseth, who never made a serious run at the top spot.

In fourth place was last week's Sprint Cup winner, Brad Keselowski. The youngster hovered in third perhaps waiting for the two rivals to destroy each other but had no such luck. He triggered a caution flag on lap 230 by putting Jason Leffler in the wall, leading to the race's final single-file restart.

For the second-consecutive week, Keselowski proved he won't back down when he has positioning down low. In addition, by holding his own at the technically-challenging RIR, he showed that he will be a force to reckon with this year on the circuit.

The early portions of the race were led by Mike Bliss, who would regret his decision to not take a pit stop with the leaders on lap 92. The cautions flew early, but the second half of the race was mostly yellow-flag free and Bliss started dropping in the field.

He then had a tire failure on lap 202 and was forced out of the field.

Also suffering a strategic error was Mark Martin, who ran out of gas at lap 196, a full 10 laps before his crew anticipated it would happen. He fell a lap behind and was unable to recover, ultimately finishing 10th.

The night's first memorable crash was in lap 13, when Eric McClure of Chilhowie was brought down by Scott Lagasse Jr.

Entering the night, Kyle Busch was the points leader on the series, followed by Edwards in second.

The two rivals will continue their dual out of Richmond, as they strengthened their points lead over the rest of the Nationwide field.

Busch was also the winner in 2007 and 2004 Nationwide races at RIR.