LOUDON, N.H. – Only two of the cars in the Kyle Busch stable for Hendrick Motorsports have names.

And one of those cars lived up to its name Sunday.

The “Punisher” Chevrolet punished the field and Busch had enough gas in his tank to survive a caution on lap 298 and a delayed restart caused by a wreck between Michael Waltrip and Robby Gordon to collect his first-ever win at New Hampshire International Speedway in the Lenox Industrial Tools 300.

His previous best finish was fourth inn last July’s race and it was his first victory of the season..

Team owner Rick Hendrick admitted he wasn’t confident Busch had enough gas to hold off the challenges of Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle.

Edwards wound up second, Biffle was third, Mark Martin was fourth and Kevin Harvick rounded out the top five. Hamlin ran out of gas and finished sixth.

Jeff Burton, Kasey Kahne, Jimmie Johnson and Scott Riggs rounded out the top 10.

“[Engine tuner and Gardiner native Scott Maxim] said it’s going to be close. And we got the green-white checkered after that so my heart was in my throat. Scott said if we get mileage like we did on the first [pit] stop, we’d be OK. On the second stop, we evidently didn’t get as good a mileage. Maybe be didn’t get [the car] that full or the car wasn’t getting as good a gas mileage. I knew we were extremely light but evidently we had more than we thought we had.

“You’d hate to get down to the last lap and have a guy who has been leading most of the race run out of gas.”

Busch led the most laps, 107, in a race that lasted an NHIS-record 308 laps.

Busch said he didn’t know if he had enough fuel but he wasn’t going to dwell on it.

“I was just going to pull my belt tight and get after it,” said Busch. “I knew if I could go off into the corner on turn one, run my own line and give it just enough brake to slow it down and turn the wheel, hopefully the car would turn and I could get the drive-off that I needed.”

He admitted that restarts are “edgy” because your tires cool down and “you don’t know if you’re going to get the grip you need.”

Busch, who started fourth, said everything fell into place for him.

“We just wanted to run our race and make sure we did what we needed to do. We didn’t want to make many mistakes and we kept them to a minimum. The guys gave me flawless pit stops, and [crew chief Alan Gustafson] had a flawless pit strategy.

“It was great. We were always able to keep our car up front,” said Busch, the 2005 Nextel Cup Rookie of the Year.

He moved from eighth to fourth in the points as a result of the win.

Busch took the lead for good on lap 240 and had a great restart on lap 271 following a caution caused by an accident on turn four.

He appeared to be cruising to a comfortable win when teammate Brian Vickers, who led 30 laps, got tangled up with Clint Bowyer on lap 298.

But the green-white checkered flag finish was delayed when Waltrip bumped into the back of Gordon during the caution.

Rookie Reed Sorenson was running fourth when he ran out of gas trying to get to his pit after the lap 298 caution.

Hamlin said that wreck involving Waltrip and Robby Gordon that forced them to run two more caution laps before the green-white checkered flag restart “killed us.

“It was pretty unfortunate. I had a shot to win because Kyle’s car didn’t come in very good. It was super-tight. But I sputtered at the green-white checkered and I couldn’t really do anything,” said a frustrated Hamlin.

Edwards was pleased with his finishing, pointing out “I haven’t ever run well here so I was really excited about it.

“I’ve run so bad here in Cup, it’s been embarrassing,” said Edwards, who won the New England 200 Busch race on Saturday.

However, he also admitted it’s “pretty frustrating when you finish second. If I could have gotten around Denny [Hamlin] at the end, maybe we could’ve gotten to Kyle. But we had a good race. We had a good time.”

There were 11 cautions on the 90-plus degree day.

Biffle said his car was “pretty decent” but after Hamlin passed him late in the race and “I burned up my right front tire and got the brakes too hot trying to race him back. Then I fell back some. That’s part of racing. It’s so hard to pass on this track.”

It was a frustrating day for some of the high-profile drivers as Tony Stewart finished 37th after being wrecked by Ryan Newman. Jeff Gordon got into the back of Kahne in the aftermath of a wreck and finished 15th and Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s engine blew up resulting in a 43rd place finish.

“This was the most competitive race I’ve ever seen here,” said Hendrick. “It was great for the fans. It was one of the best races I’ve ever seen.”

Kurt Busch, Kyle’s older brother who finished 38th after being involved in a wreck, said he “couldn’t be more proud” of his brother.

“He needed to do this right now to work his way into the chase [for the championship]. He looked good but I didn’t see him much because he was running up front,” said Kurt Busch.