Harvick Wins It by a Nose

Afterward, NASCAR officials defended their timing of the yellow flag, saying they threw the flag the moment Bowyer's car got sideways on the track and posed a hazard.

"At that time, [Harvick] was ahead of [Martin] and declared the winner," spokesman Ramsey Poston said.

NASCAR's season opener had a split personality: an uneventful first 150 laps, notable only for its fast pace and a few single-car spins, followed by a frenzied final 52 laps that saw the two best cars -- Tony Stewart's Chevrolet and Kurt Busch's Dodge -- wadded up in a fourth-turn crash.

Stewart had just reclaimed the lead and was in good position to deliver car owner Joe Gibbs the victory when he bobbled slightly and got tapped by Busch. The contact turned Stewart's car sideways, and Busch plowed into it hard enough to total both.

With the best cars out, what had shaped up as a two-man race turned into a free-for-all, with at least 15 drivers sure they had a shot to win. By then dusk had fallen, the track temperatures had cooled, the tires were sticking better and any notion of risk-aversion on the drivers' part went out the window.

Defending champion Jimmie Johnson triggered a five-car wreck on the backstretch after losing control of his racecar. On the pit stops that followed, Martin took only two new tires rather than four, which enabled him to vault into the lead exiting the pits.

In no time there was bump-fest in Turn 4, with too many drivers cramming their cars in too tiny a space. Dave Blaney sped down pit road, breaking the speed limit by about 135 mph, in a frantic effort to avoid the crashing. But when he tried to pop back onto the racetrack at top speed, he tagged Ken Schrader to trigger another pileup.

That set up a 10-lap sprint to the finish, with Martin out front, mulling the remote likelihood of finding a drafting partner in his rear-view mirror to help push him to the victory. But one last crash delayed the drama, with Jamie McMurray, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Ricky Rudd getting the brunt of damage.

To avoid finishing the race under caution, NASCAR officials red-flagged the event, bringing the action to a halt for 11 minutes 39 seconds so workers could mop up the oil and debris. The upshot gave fans and Fox broadcasters what they paid to see: a finish under green.

But with just two laps to go, it also set up the scenario drivers dread most at restrictor-plate tracks, where horsepower is so equal that one driver's wreck is apt to snare a dozen.

"A bunch of demons came out when it got dark; I know that much," Harvick said. "All hell broke loose after that."