It was a strange night capped by an even stranger finish, a fuel-mileage scramble that resulted in perhaps the most unlikely lead quintet in modern NASCAR history. The winner had never won before, the runner-up had never been in the top five, the third-place finisher hadn't placed that high in a decade. Fourth place had struggled to finish races, fifth place just to make them. To each driver, the events of that evening at Lowe's Motor Speedway seemed a needed career boost.