Tony Stewart headed south to Atlanta on Labor Day Weekend of 2010, his second season as a car owner, in contention for a spot in the Chase after both he and teammate Ryan Newman competed in the Chase one year earlier. Stewart sent a message to the other 11 drivers when he took his Chevy to Victory Lane at the fast 1.5-mile Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Denny Hamlin took the Pole in Atlanta with a qualifying speed of 187.380 followed by Ryan Newman, Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards and eventual winner Tony Stewart rounding out the top five in qualifying. This race had everything, blown tires, blown engines and wrecks but it didn’t seem like that early on as the first caution of the race didn’t come out until lap 133. During that long stretch of green flag runs, Hamlin and Stewart swapped the lead back and forth leading 67 laps while Stewart led 57 laps.

Hamlin, who was enjoying the best year of his career, would liked to have forgot about this race as his engine went south on lap 141 to finish 43rd. Things would only get worse from there as Kasey Kahne led in the middle of the race but contact with Ryan Newman forced a cut tire and a water leak ending his day as he finished 32nd.

The race came down to Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards after a late caution with Stewart pulling away from Edwards on the restart. Stewart never looked back and crossed the finish line first to snap a 31-race winless streak.

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