Burton's Texas Hold'em.

The first appearance of the 'old' Nextel Cup cars in nearly a month resulted in yet another exciting finish as Jeff Burton passed Matt Kenseth on the final lap to win Sunday's Samsung 500 at the Texas Motor Speedway.

Bright blue skies and warm weather provided a most welcome backdrop to the seventh round of the 2007 season, especially after two days of grey skies and wintry temperatures and, as has been the case in the majority of races so far this season, a slow start was followed by a frantic finish as Burton and Kenseth engaged in several laps of close but clean side by side racing before Burton's decisive move coming off turn two on the 334th and final tour of the 1.5-mile Texas oval.

In taking the win Burton becomes the first repeat winner at TMS in 13 Cup Series races at the track, the driver of the #31 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet having won the inaugural Cup event in 1997 and continues a series of stirring finishes that the increasingly popular driver has been involved in.

From second on the grid Burton ran amongst the leaders all day but didn't actually lead a lap until he crossed the stripe to take the chequered flag and had a large group of other potential winners not have been sidelined by a litany of problems in the final 100 laps, Burton may not have led at all.

Polesitter Jeff Gordon dominated the first half of the race, leading all bar a handful of the opening 150 laps in his #24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet before a slow pitstop dropped him back to seventh with 100 laps to go. Although Gordon, who remains winless at Texas, was able to fight back to the lead he then slapped the wall coming off turn four ten laps after the final restart of the day on lap 298 and fell back to fourth.

The first driver other than Gordon to lead any other laps not thanks to fuel strategy was Dale Earnhardt Jr, who passed Gordon on lap 155 and then led nearly 100 laps before ceding top spot to Kurt Busch. Earnhardt Jr then settled into second place before he was affectively eliminated when an unsighted Kyle Busch rear-ended the #8 DEI Chevrolet as both tried to slow down to avoid Tony Stewart's spinning car in turn four on lap 252.

Earnhardt Jr's team tried to repair the damage and keep their driver on the lead lap but it soon became apparent that all was not well with the engine and the car was retired while Busch, who had fought his way up to third from the rear of the grid, chose not to take his repaired car back on track in the closing laps, leaving who else but Dale Jr to take his car out for the final laps.

Jimmie Johnson had also looked like a possible winner after running in the top four throughout the first 200 laps but the #48 Hendrick Chevrolet dropped a cylinder on lap 230 and then the defending series champ found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time when Montoya and Stewart collided while fighting for sixth place on lap 238 sending Stewart into a spin directly in front of him.

The elder of the Busch brothers now looked the most likely winner and he continued to lead until making a green flag pitstop for fuel on lap 290. No sooner had Busch made his stop the yellow flags waved for debris on the front straight and by the time the order had shuffled itself out behind the pace car and the rest of the leaders took their final stops, the 2004 series champ sat in 14th place with less than 40 laps to go.

Gordon now cycled back to the front and led until his lap 308 wall brushing incident. On lap 318 Kenseth sailed through into the lead with Burton moving into second place two laps later. Burton then set about unseating the leader and by lap 325 the two were together with Burton continually trying the low line and Kenseth resolutely sticking to the high groove. By lap 328 they were running side by side and remained that way until the very end, with Burton drawing right alongside Kenseth on numerous occasions only to lose out on the straights.

However as they took the white flag Burton finally made a move stick, holding his ground underneath Kenseth going through turns one and two and then cutting the #17 Roush Racing Ford off as they came out of the corner.

Burton's victory was his second for RCR, the first ironically having come after another titanic tussle with Kenseth last year at Bristol and despite having been beaten again, Kenseth was full of praise for his rival after the race.

Behind the top two it was all change in the closing laps as the returning Mark Marti claimed a fine third place for the #01 Ginn Racing team after a late pass on Gordon. Jamie McMurray finished fifth after a drag race to the line with the third Roush Ford of Greg Biffle while Martin Truex Jr narrowly held off Juan Montoya and Denny Hamlin for seventh place.

Montoya's Chip Ganassi teammate David Stremme completed the top ten while Busch recovered to eleventh. Stewart finished two laps down in 25th while Earnhardt Jr was classified 36th, Kyle Busch 37th, Jimmie Johnson 38th and JJ Yeley 43rd and last after he was eliminated in a first lap crash with rookie David Ragan that saw Ricky Rudd's car mount Ragan's in the infield.

Next weekend sees the Cup Series racing under the lights at the Phoenix International Raceway and the return of the Car of Tomorrow.