LOUDON, N.H. -- Martin Truex Jr. was perplexed, Michael Waltrip was exultant, and J.J. Yeley was relieved Sunday evening in the aftermath of the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

But none of them was as happy as race winner Kurt Busch.

And oh yeah -- they were also all wet after rain showers that threatened the track and its full house of spectators all day finally cut the race short with 17 laps remaining.

That enabled that quartet, plus Elliott Sadler, Reed Sorenson and Casey Mears -- who combined fuel strategy and cagey pit work -- to register the top-seven positions and the commensurate point gains in a race that had been dominated by weekly contenders Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick and all four of Hendrick Motorsports' pilots.

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I'm here not [in the media center] because of the thunder you hear outside. I'm here because of strategy and the opportune caution that gave me track position. If the rain doesn't come and we're able to restart, I was faster than Kurt -- I feel like I could have beat him.

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MICHAEL WALTRIP

Busch was thrilled to get only his third top-10 finish of the season and to stop a five-race spiral down to 22nd in the driver standings. His victory gained him three spots in the standings, to 19th, and left him 222 points out of the Chase.

"Today was a good car for what we've been normally, and that put us in position to stretch our fuel a little bit -- when we could make it to the end, we pitted," said Busch, who felt like he would have won even if the race's full 301 laps played out. "We needed a few [caution] laps to help us, but we were gonna be loaded for bear and ready to rock 'n' roll if it came down to the end."

It didn't happen. When the lapped car of Sam Hornish Jr. collided with Chase contender Clint Bowyer -- who had run in the top 10 for most of the race until his car was badly damaged and knocked back to 22nd at the end -- the race's seventh and final caution waved.

As the field rolled onto the frontstretch, the cars of Sprint Cup point leader Kyle Busch, who never ran in the top 10 all day, and Juan Montoya, who led both Saturday practices but struggled mightily on Sunday, banged fenders and then, in retaliation, Montoya turned left into Busch's right-rear quarter panel and spun Busch out.

While the field circulated under caution, rain began falling and ultimately, after the field was brought to pit road under a red flag, the race was quickly called complete.

"Where we are in points, we've got our backs up against the wall," Kurt Busch said. "So we gambled a little bit and it paid off."

But it was devastating news for Stewart, who led 132 of the 284 laps in his No. 20 Toyota. Stewart had pitted for fuel and two tires on Lap 274, under the race's sixth caution and he was lined up 14th when the race restarted.

The only one who relatively dodged the raindrops was Stewart's teammate Denny Hamlin, who took fuel only on the same set of stops and lined up ninth, one spot behind where he finished. Jimmie Johnson, who had chased Stewart for the better part of the final 60 laps and seemed to have a better car, finished ninth.

His fender-banging Hendrick teammate Gordon was 11th, points runner-up Jeff Burton was 12th, his RCR teammate Harvick was 14th, Ryan Newman was 15th, and Brian Vickers was 16th. Before the final round of pit-or-no-pit decisions, they'd all stood to score top-10s.

That was not the case for the rest of the top seven, but they reveled in the results.

The runner-up finish was Waltrip's first of the season that was better than 23rd, and he jumped four positions in the owner standings, to 28th. And Waltrip claimed that despite how it seemed, he could have challenged Busch at the end.

"We were able to hold off Harvick early when he caught me [while leading] and outran him for eight or 10 laps, stayed on the lead lap," Waltrip said of how good he thought his car was. "Then I just got a break there at the end with my strategy -- pitting and getting enough gas, we felt like, to get to the end and having a really strong car.

"I passed a bunch of guys to get into position to get to Kurt and race him. I really wished there were a few more laps, wished we could have went back to green. As bad as I need those 170 points, I'm very cognizant of the difference between first and second -- it's huge. To get a win for our team would have been very, very rewarding." (Continued)