It was another dominant performance for Busch, who now has 77 victories in NASCAR’s second-level national series. Although challenged late by Kyle Larson, Busch led 119 of 163 laps in the Heads Up Georgia 250. He started the race as fastest qualifier.

MORE: Cup champions | Sunday’s starting lineup | Kyle’s inspection problem

Cup drivers held four of the top five finishing positions in the race. The best among Xfinity drivers was Busch teammate Erik Jones, who was third.

It was Busch’s first victory at Atlanta. “This is a pretty neat deal,” he told media members after the race. “Glad to get it out of the way checked off the list.”

Busch also was fastest in Friday’s Sprint Cup race qualifying but will start from the rear of the 39-car field. His car failed post-qualifying inspection. Coverage of Sunday’s race, the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500, begins a 1 p.m. ET on Fox.

The finish was in question until the final laps. Larson was making steady gains and was within eight car lengths of Busch with two laps left when Larson’s progress was impeded by the lapped car of Ryan Preece through the first corner.

Larson lost ground, and Busch crossed the finish line with a lead of 0.466 seconds.

“I actually thought that last run was going to be too long,” Busch said. Crew chief Chris “Gayle did a good job of making some adjustments to our car, and it helped me. It helped me definitely on the front side of a run, for the first 20 (laps), and I don’t think it hurt me from there on to the end of the race.

“But Larson was just better than us. He could close and close and close. Lapped traffic — they were really nice to me. I think they screwed him up a couple of times. So I kind of appreciated those guys.”

Larson had a problem with lapped traffic, but he wasn’t sure he could have passed Busch for the victory, even if he had pulled up to his rear bumper.

“I definitely would have gotten closer to him, but it would have been still tough to pass him,” Larson said. “He was saving his tires, I think, running the bottom, and I was running pretty hard at the top. He would definitely have moved up in front of me there in (Turns) 1 and 2, and it would have been tough to get underneath him.”

Here are the results.

Contributing: Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service