It’s official; Toyota is here to stay and will remain a factor for years to come. After trying desperately the first three races, Kyle Busch gave Toyota its first ever points paying victory in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

Leading 153 of the 325 laps in Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 500, the 22-year-old put on a show of survival and strength as the entire field fought not the competition, but the Goodyear tires on their cars.

“This is amazing,” Kyle Busch said. “The No. 18 has always been the car to beat here at Atlanta for many, many years when this place was redone and with Bobby Labonte. This means so much to come back here and do this. Overall it’s great for Joe Gibbs Racing.”

This is not the first ‘first’ for the young star. Busch captured NASCAR’s first Car of Tomorrow race last spring at Bristol Motor Speedway, today captured Toyota’s first victory and is the first driver to win the Craftsman Truck Series and Sprint Cup Series races on the same weekend.

This also marked the first Sprint Cup victory for Busch’s crew chief Steve Addington. Commenting on his relationship and what he has learned from his young driver is that, “he gives 125% in practice. He wants you to fix the car, fix it now, this is my problem. Just makes us work on the car, which makes us a better race team.”

“It was a battle out there, that’s for sure,” Busch said following the victory. “We didn’t have the car that was able to go through the corner the best, but we had the longevity in the car that was able to make it 500 miles.”

Winning Toyota’s first race was special, but for Busch, “it wasn’t all that important to me.” Busch went on to congratulate the manufacturer and offer his thanks for the support, but as he pointed out, “I’d drive a milk crate.”

Although Busch led the most laps, Carl Edwards looked to be the class of the field for much of the afternoon. Leading 33 laps on the day, Edwards put the controversy surrounding last week’s penalty behind him by doing what he does best.

“It just felt good to be able to drive to the front that easy,” Edwards said from the garage. The No. 99 Ford Fusion led the field to the green on a restart coming at Lap 267, when smoke began billowing from the right side of the car. Originally, the team believed it to simply be a tire rub, but when it failed to go away and eventually got worse, Edwards was black-flagged by NASCAR.

Pulling into the pits, Edwards came over the radio simply to say, “It broke, it broke, it broke.” “I don’t know what happened, but the oil tank lid was on,” Edwards said following the race, “I believe we had the car that was the class of the field.”

This was no easy race for Kyle Busch though. “This race was a challenge. I’m telling you, it was tough.” Busch described the racing as feeling like, “driving on ice.”

“It was the worst I’ve ever felt in a racecar and I won the thing, so I can’t imagine how those poor guys that were running for 30th, fighting for 30th, as hard as they were fighting felt.”

Definitely the hottest driver on the circuit right now, Busch has won two of the first three Craftsman Truck Series races – including Friday’s American Commercial Lines 200. He leads the series standings in both the Craftsman Truck Series and the Sprint Cup Series and sits second in the NASCAR Nationwide Series standings. Heading to a track where he is the defending race winner, Busch will undoubtedly be the man to beat.