Jeff Burton passed Matt Kenseth on the final lap to pick up the win, but it was drivers Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr. that grabbed all the headlines after the April 15 race at Texas Motor Speedway.

It started on lap 253 when the No. 20 Chevy of Tony Stewart spun coming out of Turn 4. Jr. slowed to avoid the wreck, but Busch was unable to see Earnhardt's car amidst the cloud of smoke and his No. 5 Chevy rear-ended the No. 8 machine, causing heavy damage to both vehicles. Both cars appeared capable of winning the race, but the real story wasn't the crash involving Busch and Earnhardt, but rather what happened when the No. 5 car returned to the track with nine laps to go.

A crew repairing a banged up racecar is nothing new, and many a driver has been forced to ride around the track in a patched up junker. However, Busch wasn't behind the wheel of the No. 5 car when it returned – Earnhardt Jr. was, creating one of the most shocking moments in Nextel Cup for quite some time.

Forget the fact that Junior was driving the same car that slammed into him and ended his chance at his first win in nearly a year. Busch and Earnhardt are on different teams and both drivers will likely compete against each other for the championship this season. On the surface, it would seem that Junior was an idiot for helping out his competition, but in reality Junior came out a winner in the deal while Hendrick Motorsports and the No. 5 team were the big losers.

By racing the final nine laps, Junior moved the No. 5 car past Jimmie Johnson in the final running order, gaining the team a whopping three points. In the long run, the odds of Junior missing the Chase for the Cup by three or fewer points to Busch are as close to zero as odds get. Both drivers should easily be in the top 12 in points, making three points in the seventh race of the season essentially meaningless.

While the No. 5 team gained three points, Junior gained much more – a chance to get behind the wheel of a Hendrick Motorsports car, the same type of car that has been dominating Nextel Cup the last few seasons. In nine short laps, tons of valuable information was made available to Earnhardt. How much horsepower does the engine have? How does the car handle in the corners? What does the setup feel like?Now Junior can take this info back to DEI and his own team and tell the guys at the shop what areas they need to improve in to compete with Hendrick.

While I'm sure the decision to put Junior in the car was just a spur of the moment thing that wasn't thought out, team owner Rick Hendrick had to be furious when he found out. NASCAR is incredibly competitive, and teams are so close that even the slightest edge can make a huge difference on the track. Hendrick Motorsports clearly has an edge on the rest of the field right now, and the No. 5 team might have just compromised that advantage.

As bad as revealing pertinent information to a competitor was, equally as troublesome was the reason why Jr. had the opportunity to get in the No. 5 car. When the car was ready to return to the race, Busch couldn't be found. Maybe it was a breakdown in communication and Busch thought the car was too badly damaged to be repaired, but the more likely scenario was that Busch left because he was upset about wrecking a good racecar. While smashing a car is always frustrating for a driver, Busch can't just leave. The crew worked tirelessly to get the car back on the track and their driver doesn't even have the respect and courtesy to stick around and tough it out. What kind of team chemistry does that build? This situation is even worse because Junior ended up in the car and with vital information. I'm sure Busch got an earful from owner Rick Hendrick, and he owes his team an apology.

I have to commend Junior for one of the craftiest moves I've seen in NASCAR in a long time. He builds a good relationship with the No. 5 team by doing the crew a favor and pads his reputation as a nice guy, and at the same time he is gaining valuable information from the top team in the sport.

While I don't expect any driver to be leaving the track too soon again in the near future, this incident does raise an important question. Why don't high dollar teams always have an extra driver standing by to serve as a designated backup? These backups would only be driving after the car was wrecked or on the rare occasions when a driver gets sick or has an emergency to attend to, so they don't have to be high quality drivers, just a guy that can log laps. There are dozens of mediocre drivers that don't have a car of their own that would be thrilled to get some track time even if it is in a beat up car. Why risk the main driver getting hurt, puttering around the track in a wounded racecar when the backup can perform the same task?

The entire Busch-Earnhardt Jr. incident was one of the weirder things to happen in NASCAR to say the least. It was a mistake by Busch to leave the track prematurely and an even bigger mistake by Hendrick Motorsports to allow Dale Jr. to race the No. 5 car. Credit Junior with a savvy move, but don't expect anyone to pull off a similar maneuver anytime soon.