Jason Smith / Getty Images

Kyle Busch leads Regan Smith during the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday.

updated 10:45 a.m. ET March 26, 2007

BRISTOL, Tenn. - As Jeff Burton considered how to beat Kyle Busch in the closing laps at Bristol Motor Speedway, he couldn’t shake the lessons his mother taught him as a child.

“My mother always told me to do onto other people the way you want them to do you,” Burton remembered. “That’s the only thing I know to do. I’ve always tried to let the guy I am racing with set the rules. ... Kyle drives hard. He drives really hard. But he’s always raced me with respect.”

And with that, Burton refused to bump Busch out of the way Sunday, instead pulling alongside of him before Busch beat him in a drag race to the finish line to win the first Car of Tomorrow race.

But the victory wasn’t enough to convince Busch to embrace the COT. He complained it was difficult to drive and ruined the race.

“I said that I wanted to go out and win this race so I could tell everybody how terrible this thing is to drive,” Busch said. “I can’t stand to drive them. They suck.”

Burton credited Busch with racing clean that day, and both drivers had it fresh in their memories on the final three laps Sunday.

“Jeff Burton easily could have dumped me there in three and four, but I think our Vegas finish helped me out a little bit with that,” Busch said. “I think I had some brownie points to use up.”

Busch took the lead with 16 laps to go on a smooth pass around Denny Hamlin in thick traffic and stayed there through a pair of cautions. He had driven away from the competition when the 15th and final caution set up a three-lap overtime.

With Busch and teammate Jeff Gordon running 1-2 at the restart, the two plotted their own strategy with their respective crew chiefs.

“Well, good job guys,” Busch sighed at the final caution. “We’ll do what we can. I can’t promise you anything.”

“He’ll be nice,” crew chief Alan Gustafson said. “He’ll play nice.”

It didn’t sound that way on Gordon’s channel.

“Tell that 5, if I get a fender underneath him, he better think about the fact that we’re teammates,” Gordon said. “If I don’t get a fender underneath him, I won’t move him out of the way.”

It never mattered, though, as Burton jumped past Gordon on the restart and quickly pulled onto Busch’s rear bumper. Burton looked low and Busch threw a block, then he went high and Busch blocked that, too.

Burton finally pulled alongside Busch as they closed in on the finish line, but Busch nipped him at the flag for his first Nextel Cup victory on a short track.

Both drivers could have spun Busch to get past him, and the 21 year old appreciated the veterans for racing him clean.

“Without Jeff Gordon and Jeff Burton behind me, I never would have won this race,” Busch said.

Burton didn’t regret it.

“I could have used the bumper to move him out of the way and win the race, but I didn’t want to,” Burton said. “I can lay in bed tonight and wonder, ‘What if?’ But that’s what I chose to do. If you can’t pass him without knocking him out of the way, do the best you can. He’s driven me clean, and that’s what I did with him.”

Gordon, the polesitter, wound up third and was thrilled with the effort after struggling for most of the race.

“That’s an awesome win for him,” Gordon said. “I wanted to race with him. I got a run on the inside and I knew Burton was going to get a run on the outside and I knew I was in trouble, so I just tried to hold onto third.”

Busch’s win was the third straight for Hendrick Motorsports — Jimmie Johnson won the past two Cup events — and was the 200th overall win for car owner Rick Hendrick. It also was the 600th for manufacturer Chevrolet, which introduced the Impala SS this weekend to coincide with NASCAR’s debut of the Car of Tomorrow.

The COT spent seven years in development as NASCAR tried to build a uniform car that would cut costs, improve safety and even the competition. It will be used in 16 races this season as NASCAR phases it in through the 2009 season.

It’s introduction had teams fretting for months over performance and the many unknowns the COT created.

But when the race finally began, everything seemed pretty normal. Except for the design of the cars, which have a front splitter and a detachable rear wing, nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

And the worst fears — that the track would be littered with parts and pieces everytime one of them wrecked — never developed.