Bank of America 500 postrace report

The winner and how he did it: Jeff Burton won at LMS for the third time in his career but the first time since May 2001. It was also Burton's first victory in the track's autumn 500-miler.

Oh so close: No one has ever won all three of LMS's major races - Sprint All-Star Race, Coca-Cola 600 and Bank of America 500 - in the same year. He almost pulled it off, finishing second to Burton.

Another one bites the dust: Carl Edwards' woes continued. Engine troubles led to his 34^th-place finish.

Assorted trivialities and historical notables:

            The Bank of America 500 marked the 21^st victory of Burton's career, tying with Benny Parsons, Bobby Labonte and Jack Smith for 28^th place all-time.

The highest-finishing rookie was 22^nd place Sam Hornish Jr.

Johnson, who leads Burton by 69 points, has three more victories, five more top-five finishes and two more top 10s than Burton.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is 354 points out in 10^th place.

There are three drivers within 100 points, five within 200 and eight within 300.

The so-called crowd estimate (160,000) distributed after the race was probably exaggerated by at least 60,000.

Mentionable stuff they said later:

            "The last two runs, the car was the best it had been all night." - Jeff Burton

"There's only one thing to do and that's to learn from everything this week. That's for sure." - Carl Edwards

"We had a car with good speed. We've just got to take care of the details." - David Ragan (10^th)

"You can move all over and do a lot of things at this race track. It was fun race. I wish I could have got him (Burton)." - Kasey Kahne (second)

"It feels good, but we still had bad luck." - Kyle Busch (fourth)

"Everybody did a good job, but it's a shame because I think we had a car capable of winning here in the spring and again here, but we didn't close the deal." - Greg Zipadelli, Tony Stewart's crew chief.