SIX-GUNNER; KYLE BUSCH WINS AGAIN, THIS TIME AT DAYTONA.

Byline: AL PEARCE

NASCAR caught a break with its July 4 weekend Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway. Finally, the late-night conversations and sports-talk babble could turn to on-track excitement rather than warmed-over discussions about what some see as difficult times ahead for the once-bulletproof sport.

For that change in fo-cus, we can thank race winner Kyle Busch; runner-up Carl Edwards; a last-lap wreck involving Michael Waltrip, Dave Blaney, Sam Hornish Jr. and Travis Kvapil, and those all-seeing underground scoring loops around DIS.

A late-race multicar accident sent the 160-lap, 400-mile Sprint Cup race into extra laps, the sixth such overtime this year. The OT briefly delayed Busch's memorable drive into victory lane from what looked for much of the night like just a rather routine top-10 finish for the Joe Gibbs Racing star. The win was Busch's sixth so far this season.

On the final restart, on lap 161, third-running Edwards rammed second-running Jeff Gordon and sent the four-time champion spinning through the turn-one grass. With Gor-don out of the way safely, NASCAR withheld the yellow flag so that the race might end under green. But just as Edwards pulled even with Busch in turn two on the last lap, Waltrip, Blaney, Hor-nish and Kvapil crashed in turn one. Officials had no choice but to display the yellow flag and end the race on the backstretch.

The question was, when did the flag come out, and who was leading when it did? NASCAR said that Busch was barely ahead when the caution began and was thus the winner. If Edwards had a problem with the ruling, he didn't express it publicly.

"Man, I'd have given anything to have been able to run down to the end of the back straightaway,'' he said. "But that's the way it goes, and Kyle did a great job. It was a little nerve-racking before they announced the winner. Sec-ond place is second place, but I really wanted to win.''