Kurt Busch won a race shortened to 382 miles by rain, his second straight victory, but the big story at Atlanta Motor Speedway was Tony Stewart's fourth-place finish.

Coupled with troubles for rookie Jimmie Johnson, who spun out twice in his Chevrolet and finished 22nd, the contest for the 2002 Winston Cup championship is much less of a battle than it was going into the 33rd of the year's 36 races.

Stewart, who got a huge break early when the timing of a 2½-hour rain delay gave his team a chance to tighten loose lug nuts on his Pontiac without disastrous consequences, emerged from the long afternoon with a 146-point lead in the standings over Mark Martin, who finished eighth Sunday and moved four points ahead of Johnson.

Stewart dropped from second to 32nd when he had to pit following the red flag to fix the problem that happened on a yellow-flag stop just as the day's first rain shower began. He soon raced back into contention, however, and had chased down Joe Nemechek to take the lead before Busch made a green-flag pit stop on Lap 202 that turned track position in his favor.

"Pitting quick, a little short, that's what got us out front," said Busch, who was the first among the leaders to come in on what turned out to be the final round of green-flag stops just past the 200-lap mark.

Busch got onto the track on fresh tires and still made up so much ground on those who pitted just a couple of laps later that he was in command the rest of the way.

"I believe Jimmy Fennig is the smartest crew chief on pit road right now," Busch said. "When he said we were coming in, I knew it wasn't time. But I also knew we got burned here last time by the 20 car (Stewart) short-pitting. It was nice to come out on the right end of that this time."

Busch got the shortest possible end of the stick in this race one year ago when he failed to qualify - his team was out of provisionals and he didn't make the field on speed. Busch, 24, called that the low point of his two-year Cup career. On Sunday he turned it into a highlight.

"This is a great day for us," he said. "It was just a matter of perfect execution for us all week long."

That execution included another jiffy-quick pit stop after Johnson's second spin on Lap 231 brought out the yellow. Busch, who'd been holding off Nemechek's Chevrolet for the lead, got off pit road just ahead of Stewart, Nemechek and Dale Jarrett.

Busch broke clean on the restart on Lap 238, but Stewart lost positions to Nemechek and Jarrett and barely held off Dale Earnhardt Jr. for fourth before rain brought out the yellow again after Lap 242. The field continued behind the pace car for six more laps until the rain, which had threatened all day, picked up and NASCAR pulled the plug.

Second might have been better, but fourth was still pretty good for Stewart given the larger issue of the championship

"There still isn't a sucker out there who can say I am points racing," Stewart said. "I had that thing sideways chasing Nemechek. I could have cruised and just rode it in, but I was going for the win today.

"We had an unfortunate deal with the lug nuts, but the good Lord was watching out for us. We went to the back ... and drove nonstop to the front. Man, this car was awesome all day."

Johnson's Chevrolet was considerably less than awesome after he spun coming off Turn 4 on Lap 138. He limped around on flat tires and stayed on the lead lap, but never got back into the top 15 before the second spin dealt another blow to his title chances.

"We had a loose race car and I spun out twice," Johnson said. "We just really expected the track to tighten up a lot more. I kept trying to hang on.

"I'm a rookie, this stuff is supposed to happen. There are three races left and a lot of things can happen. If that 20 car (Stewart) finishes 25th once we're right back in it."