Kyle Busch wins the 2016 STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway

Averting the typical madness associated with short track racing transpiring behind him, Kyle Busch stayed poised and out front to score a dominating victory Sunday at Martinsville Speedway.

Busch, the defending Sprint Cup champion, led 352 laps out of a possible 500 to win for the first time this season. The win was also Busch’s first in 22 starts at Martinsville, the sport’s oldest track that’s hosted NASCAR premier division races since 1948.

A.J. Allmendinger finished second, with Kyle Larson third, Austin Dillon fourth and Brad Keselowski fifth. In winning, Busch led the most laps at Martinsville since Bobby Hamilton led 378 on April 20, 1998.

“This was one of the best race cars I’ve had here in a long, long time,” Busch said. “Just being able to have the confidence in the car and the belief in the grip of the car that we had that it really helped me be able to just run up front, and I could actually run up front and take care of my equipment all day long. That really just sort of set the tone for the day.”

Although possessing the best car, Busch needed to withstand a restart with 11 laps remaining to secure the victory.

Positioned in the preferred bottom groove alongside Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Matt Kenseth, Busch got the jump and quickly distanced himself from the pack. Not able to get going due to the lack of grip in upper groove, Kenseth slid backwards. He finished 15th.

Allmendinger, who restarted third, narrowed the gap to Busch, but could never get close enough to seriously challenge. Had there not been a caution, Busch felt Kenseth could have beat him.

“I was a little worried there towards the end before that last caution came out that Matt was catching me,” Busch said. “He was on me pretty good and I wasn’t sure that I had enough brake in order to handle the rest of the day, but fortunately we got a yellow there, got some more tires and we were able to win this thing.”

As is often the case on the half-mile track, physical racing was featured throughout the field with few drivers making 500 miles without suffering damage of some kind. Eight cautions slowed the sixth race of the season for 51 laps.

Among those who encountered trouble Sunday were Dale Earnhardt Jr., who spun just five laps into the event after contact with David Ragan, and defending race-winner Denny Hamlin, who wheel-hopped entering Turn 1 and clobbered the outside wall on Lap 220.

Earnhardt recovered to finish 15th, Hamlin placed 39th. Entering the weekend Hamlin stressed not making mistakes if he was to win for a fifth time at Martinsville. Before overdriving the corner, he was attempting to rally back from a pit-road speeding penalty.

“It’s my first time ever doing it here, so it’s a little embarrassing,” Hamlin said. “As the tires wear, the rears get hotter, less grip, you can’t brake at the same amount and I just -- it was really out of the blue. I didn’t ever have a hint of it up until that moment, so a bit of a rookie move on my part -- been around here too much to do something like that.”