The Associated Press

Overcoming his recent bad luck that has virtually ended his chances at a Sprint Cup championship, Busch returned to his familiar spot in the Nationwide Series on Friday night, cruising to a win in the soggy, wreck-filled Dollar General 300.

The victory was the ninth for the 23-year-old Busch in NASCAR's second-tier series. He has won eight Cup races and three more in the Craftsman Truck Series.

The busy Busch's 70th race of the season followed a familiar script for Joe Gibbs Racing, whose teams have won 18 of the 31 Nationwide races.

Busch started 16th, but his superior No. 18 Toyota was on display early. He quickly moved to the front and led 137 of the 200 laps.

Busch pulled away from Jeff Burton on a restart with three laps to go, despite taking just two tires on his final pit stop. Burton held on to finish second and Brian Vickers was third.

Points leader Clint Bowyer finished fourth and Carl Edwards was fifth.

The race, which included 14 Sprint Cup drivers and six in the Chase for the championship, never got into a flow thanks to rain and wrecks.

There were two rain delays totaling more than an hour, and 13 cautions that caused 58 laps to be run under caution.

But a finish well after midnight didn't affect Busch, who completed a Nationwide sweep at Lowe's Motor Speedway, and softened some of his disappointment from his recent weeks in the Sprint Cup.

Busch hasn't finished better than 15th since the season-ending Chase began, dropping him to 11th in the standings behind leader Jimmie Johnson.

But in a field that included several Cup veterans and inexperienced drivers, nobody could challenge Busch.

Johnson, the Sprint Cup points leader with five victories here in NASCAR's top series, remained winless in Nationwide races at the track. Fighting a loose car, Johnson hit the wall with 83 laps left, ending his chances.

The storyline of the soggy race week here -- the running feud between Edwards and Kevin Harvick -- produced no further fodder. A day after they were involved in an argument in the garage and had to be separated by their crew members, the two played nice on the track despite running side-by-side much of the night.

The two have been at odds since Edwards caused a 12-car accident that collected Harvick in Sunday's Sprint Cup race at Talladega. Harvick then criticized Edwards' driving style and called him "a pansy" in a television interview.

But few were able to avoid the myriad of wrecks that left 32 of 43 cars running at the end.

Joey Logano, the 18-year-old prodigy making his Lowe's Motor Speedway debut, got loose and hit the wall on the 106th lap. He returned to the track and got back on the lead lap, finishing 14th.

• Harvick snarky after dustup with Edwards: At Concord, N.C., note passing, name calling, playground scuffles and widespread gossip. Sound like the fifth grade? Well, that, too.

In this case, though, it's the latest installment in NASCAR's Chase for the championship.

The tension between Carl Edwards and Kevin Harvick had not abated Friday, a day after the two had to be separated during a heated exchange in Harvick's garage stall at Lowe's Motor Speedway.

"Be careful who you wanna pick a fight with," Harvick warned. "If you wanna pick a fight with the wrong person, sometimes it turns around and bites you, no matter how big and tough you think you are."

A confident Harvick smirked through a short interview on pit road, where he stood just a few feet from Edwards during Nationwide Series qualifying. Neither driver dared look at each other, and Edwards downplayed the situation.

"I've got so many great things going on, I'm not going to worry about this," Edwards said. "It just doesn't matter. That's the truth. I am what I am. He is what he is. If those things are different, that's fine. It doesn't bother me."

This whole skirmish started when Edwards triggered a 12-car accident last week at Talladega, and Harvick criticized his driving style on live television by calling him "a pansy."

Edwards left a sarcastic note after the race with Harvick's pilot -- some versions of the story claim Edwards stuck it on the airplane windshield -- and followed up with a face-to-face during a break in Thursday's practice session.

When Harvick tried to walk away, witnesses said Edwards grabbed his shoulder as if to turn him back around. Harvick responded by shoving him onto the hood of his car, and as crew members rushed in to break it up, witnesses said Edwards was put in a headlock.

"We were in our pit stall and just protected our turf," Harvick smirked.

Edwards has declined to give his version of events, preferring to focus on the competition. He's second in the Chase standings, just 72 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson and needs to close the gap in Saturday night's race at Lowe's to keep his championship hopes alive.

"I couldn't be more ready to race," he said. "I feel better in the car today than I have in a long time. It's kind of refreshing. Nobody likes to deal with that stuff. It's not as much fun. It's nice to get in the car and do what we're here to do. Not the rest of the stuff."

But it may not be so easy for Edwards to escape this drama. Harvick is a master manipulator, and from his sixth-place spot in the standings, it's entirely possible he's playing mind games with Edwards in a ploy to knock one of the championship favorites out of contention.

"If that's the effect, hey, all is fair in love and war and The Chase," said Texas Motor Speedway president Eddie Gossage. "Other leagues hide injuries or find bulletin board material. Maybe this is the same thing."

Asked directly if he was trying to get in Edwards' head, Harvick didn't exactly deny it: "That's not very hard to do," he smiled.

Because of the close confines of NASCAR's traveling community, neither driver can escape the whispers spreading like wildfire through the garage as everyone has dissected the latest feud.

"I guess Harvick didn't have very nice things to say, and Carl got his feelings hurt," said Kyle Busch, the resident "Bad Boy" who has argued with both drivers this season. "I'm going to go with Carl, with his build. But I still think Harvick is a pretty good scrapper."

But Dale Earnhardt Jr. wasn't so sure that Edwards, a noted fitness buff, had an automatic edge.

"It would be tough," Earnhardt said. "Kevin never backed down from anybody. But you know that Carl is pretty tough. It'd be quite interesting."

Gossage is pouncing on the possibilities, ordering his staff to design an ad campaign around the scuffle to promote next month's Chase race. Drama between drivers equals ticket sales, and in this collapsing economy, any extra attention on the sport helps promoters such as Gossage.

"It's always good when you have a rivalry because we'd gotten to a point where, whether it was NASCAR's action or sponsors' action, some of the color and personality had been removed from the sport," Gossage said. "We've gotten too 'PC' as a sport, so it's good to see a couple of guys point the finger at each other."

The episode brought back memories for three-time Cup champion Darrell Waltrip, who played his share of mind games while racing rivals Dale Earnhardt, Cale Yarborough and Rusty Wallace.

Waltrip said everyone thought the games were funny back in his day, when drivers routinely left notes in the seat of the car. Waltrip even recalled "leaving Earnhardt a dead fish or a can of sardines."

"You would have kind of thought that they would have thought (Edwards' note) was funny, but it apparently got a little heated," said Waltrip, now a Fox analyst. "You're looking at two of the probably most high-strung drivers in either garage area, Nationwide or the Cup side. Carl's passionate and he's aggressive, and so is Kevin. That's two bulls butting heads right there."

• Judge: Castroneves can race in Australia: At Miami, Helio Castroneves can leave the country for an IndyCar event this month in Australia after a federal judge agreed Friday to modify bail conditions on tax charges the driver's facing.

Prosecutors argued the two-time Indianapolis 500 winner has ample reason to run and the assets in Brazil and elsewhere to facilitate such a move. But U.S. Magistrate Judge William Turnoff said he was convinced that "the dumbest thing Mr. Castroneves could do" would be to flee to his native Brazil and not show up for court, given his lucrative racing and endorsement career based in the U.S.

"You have much to lose by not complying with conditions of release," Turnoff said at a hearing to Castroneves, who nodded vigorously in agreement.

Castroneves, who also won the 2007 TV "Dancing with the Stars" competition, is charged with conspiracy and tax evasion for allegedly dodging U.S. taxes on about $5.5 million in income using offshore accounts. He has pleaded not guilty and is free on $10 million bail.

Turnoff, in a wry reference to Castroneves' dancing career, said he would have to "tango with the U.S. Marshals" if he didn't show up for court.

The judge initially prohibited Castroneves from traveling outside the continental U.S. for races or other work but agreed Friday to modify those conditions for the Oct. 26 event in Brisbane, Australia. Castroneves attorney David Garvin said there was zero chance he would flee prosecution, especially to a Brazil he left in 1996.

"Unless he's planning to go to the Amazon, there's no place to go in Brazil," Garvin said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Matt Axelrod, however, said Castroneves has $15 million in an account in the Netherlands and access to millions more in Brazil, where he owns Burger King restaurants and a car dealership. Facing a potential prison term of up to five years, Axelrod said the 33-year-old driver had ample reason to run.

"His career's at risk either way," Axelrod said. "He has extensive ties there."

Turnoff did give prosecutors until close of business Tuesday to appeal his order to another federal judge, but the U.S. attorney's office later Friday said no appeal was planned.

Garvin also said Castroneves intends to pay the Internal Revenue Service about $5 million in taxes after his offshore "deferred royalty contract" expires on Dec. 31. That account is central to the criminal case, which alleges that Castroneves, his sister and a Michigan lawyer created fraudulently to evade taxes between 1999-2004.

All have pleaded not guilty.