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Kyle Busch won the Nationwide Series title in style by claiming his ninth victory of the season at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

The 24-year-old fended off Carl Edwards in the closing laps, as the Roush Fenway driver charged from eighth place on the last restart after taking on a new set of tyres for the final sprint of the race, while most of the frontrunners stayed out, led by Busch.

Edwards arrived on Busch’s bumper with two laps to go but got loose while trying to follow the leader on turn four. He would eventually lose contact with the Joe Gibbs racer, who went on to underline his superiority throughout the year with another perfect score, which brought his points’ total for the year to a record high in the series’ history.

“This was such a great year,” said Busch. “Really it’s a true testament for this team, [crew chief] Jason [Ratcliff], Joe [Gibbs] and JD [Gibbs], all the guys that work so hard at Joe Gibbs Racing in order to make this possible.

“For us to come out here and win the final race of the season and really put the icing on the cake for our year and our championship, it really means a lot. It hasn’t been done in a long time, so you know how hard I guess it is to do it, that somebody comes out here and win the final race of the year, but that’s what we set out to do.”

“At the end of the race with Carl coming through on tyres it was such a fun deal, fun to watch and fun to be a part of. Glad that we were able to hold him off and come out here and win this thing.”

Besides his points total, Busch also set a number of records during his championship campaign. He led the most laps over a single season with 2698 up front, posted a record 11 runner-up finishes, and became the first driver to win two national series races in the same day when he won in the Nationwide and Truck Series at Fontana in February.

He also gave Joe Gibbs a second consecutive owners’ title, and became Toyota’s first driver to win a championship in the second-tier series.

Edwards got the runner-up spot in the championship for the second year in a row with his second-place finish. Starting from pole position he later recovered well from an unscheduled stop in the early going to fix damage to the front end of his car caused by debris.

Before the final caution came out he had been on the receiving end of the wrong tyre strategy as he stayed out while others pitted with 41 laps to go, only to see Busch fly past by him six laps later.

The former Nationwide Series champion tried to make the same move work for him in the end, but he couldn’t quite make it pay off.

“We needed a couple of more laps,” said Edwards. “We got off sequence; we had those tyres. I’ve got to say congrats to Kyle and those guys. We finished second to them in the championship, but those guys have really been a classic deal. I was just telling them that I didn’t have the heart to run into them. It was the only way I was going to get by them by the finish line.

“I dove down there and got a good look at it, and I was thinking right about here, ‘No, I better not.’ But that’s racing. We had a good time racing with these guys.”

Jeff Burton finished third after leading the race for 49 laps and looked like the top contender to beat Busch at one stage. Behind him Joey Logano was fourth, who also led the race and looked strong in the first half of the race.

Denny Hamlin finished fifth and got payback on Brad Keselowski for previous run-ins. The Joe Gibbs driver pushed Keselowski into a spin on lap 35 coming out of turn four while racing among the top-ten. NASCAR parked him for a lap as a penalty, but Hamlin said it was worth taking.

“I wasn’t feeling too bad about it,” said Hamlin about the penalty. “I knew we could come back from it and our car was still in one piece. That’s the thing, I wouldn’t try to cause harm to anyone and I knew spinning him at the point that I wasn’t going to get hurt and his car wasn’t going to get hurt. I just wanted to make his day a little tougher.”

Keselowski didn’t get to enjoy a good farewell from JR Motorsports, finishing 12th and breaking a 16-race string of consecutive top-ten finishes. He first spun on lap 9, causing damage to his car, charged back from 38th place to move up to tenth as soon as lap 30, before Hamlin ran into him.

“He spun me out and didn’t even tear it up,” said Keselowski. “I think it’s cool, I’m alright. I’m ready to move on.

“Just wanted to finish up with a stronger run than what we did today. But I put it in the fence early on in the race and tore the car up and took a bunch of speed out of it. That was my fault.”

While Brendan Gaughan was the highest finishing rookie of the race, Penske’s Justin Allgaier took Rookie of the Year honours.

Pos  Driver             Car        Laps

 1.  Kyle Busch         Toyota      200

 2.  Carl Edwards       Ford        200

 3.  Jeff Burton        Chevrolet   200

 4.  Joey Logano        Toyota      200

 5.  Denny Hamlin       Toyota      200

 6.  David Reutimann    Toyota      200

 7.  Ryan Newman        Chevrolet   200

 8.  Steve Wallace      Chevrolet   200

 9.  Scott Speed        Toyota      200

10.  Matt Kenseth       Ford        200

11.  Brendan Gaughan    Chevrolet   200

12.  Brad Keselowski    Chevrolet   200

13.  Jason Keller       Ford        200

14.  Paul Menard        Ford        200

15.  Mike Wallace       Chevrolet   200

16.  Mike Bliss         Chevrolet   200

17.  Kenny Wallace      Chevrolet   200

18.  Jason Leffler      Toyota      200

19.  Scott Wimmer       Chevrolet   199

20.  Justin Allgaier    Dodge       199

21.  Michael Annett     Toyota      199

22.  Kevin Conway       Chevrolet   199

23.  Tony Raines        Chevrolet   199

24.  John Wes Townley   Ford        198

25.  Parker Kligerman   Dodge       198

26.  Mark Green         Chevrolet   198

27.  Ken Butler III     Chevrolet   198

28.  Eric McClure       Ford        198

29.  Kelly Bires        Chevrolet   198

30.  Tim Andrews        Chevrolet   197

31.  Erik Darnell       Ford        197

32.  Justin Marks       Toyota      196

33.  Shelby Howard      Chevrolet   196

34.  Blake Koch         Dodge       189

35.  Danny O’Quinn Jr   Chevrolet    52

36.  Joe Nemechek       Chevrolet    47

37.  Chase Miller       Toyota       26

38.  Kenny Hendrick     Ford         15

39.  Mark Day           Chevrolet    11

40.  Terry Cook         Chevrolet     7

41.  Dennis Setzer      Dodge         5

42.  Johnny Chapman     Chevrolet     4

43.  Kevin Hamlin       Ford          3