Tony Stewart ends drought with Atlanta win

Tony Stewart raced to his first victory of the year, pulling away from Carl Edwards off the final restart Sunday night at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Stewart beat Edwards by 1.316 seconds for his first victory since Oct. 4, 2009, at Kansas, leaving Edwards winless since the 2008 season finale.

Jimmie Johnson was third, followed by Jeff Burton and Kyle Busch.

Ten drivers now have clinched spots in the 12-man Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship going into the final race before the playoff begins, led by points leader Kevin Harvick.

The final caution of the night came out after Ryan Newman made contact with Kasey Kahne, nearly causing a crash on the backstretch.

Stewart was out front when the green came back out with 19 laps to go, and he zoomed off the line to beat Edwards into the first corner. From there, the No. 14 car steadily pulled away.

"I didn't hit a restart all night until right there at the end," Stewart said. "I've never been so happy with a win in my life."

Meanwhile, Denny Hamlin wanted to get an early start on the Chase.

Now, he's just glad that it's almost here.

After starting from the pole, Hamlin had another dismal finish Sunday in the Emory Healthcare 500, going out with a blown engine that again raised concerns about the reliability of a car that won five races during a 10-race stretch earlier this year.

"We just have one more week to hopefully survive," he said. "At this point, I'm so lucky there's no more races (after next week at Richmond) before the Chase cutoff, or else we would be in danger of missing it. It's just very discouraging."

Hamlin has not won in nearly two months and struggled to finishes of 34th and 37th in two of his last three races before Atlanta. He said the team had decided to treat the last two events before the 10-race playoff as though they were part of the Chase, hoping that would get the No. 11 Toyota back on track before it begins for real.

He led 74 laps, but knew there could be trouble when teammate Joey Logano blew a cylinder and fell off the pace.

"I saw the 20 (Logano) have problems and then I was pretty worried," Hamlin said.