DARLINGTON, S.C. (AP) – Tony Stewart must’ve needed a new surface to finally break through at Darlington Raceway.

The two-time Sprint Cup champion had never won here in 19 previous races, four of them Nationwide events, dating to 1996. Yet, Stewart was dominant throughout in gliding to victory in the first race on Darlington’s slicker, repaved surface Friday night.

He was about the only one who got away unscathed, with Sprint Cup stars Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth and Mark Martin all wrecking.

“We had an awesome race car today,” Stewart said. “I’m telling you, this thing was head-and-shoulders better than it was” in practices.

Stewart made it through eight cautions, two off the Nationwide’s Darlington record, and a green-white-checkered finish for his fourth series victory this year, and Joe Gibbs Racing’s sixth straight victory.

After David Ragan’s hard crash on the backstretch, Stewart easily moved forward on the restart three laps from the end. Right behind, though, was chaos as Martin’s second-place machine failed to get up to speed.

The stall collected five other cars and brought out the race’s second stoppage, as it took more than 15 minutes to clean up.

“We didn’t have enough gas there,” said Martin, the series’ career leader with 48 victories. “I apologize to everybody who got in that wreck. It’s a really bad deal when a car up front doesn’t take off.”

None of it affected Stewart. He grabbed the lead for good with 27 laps to go when leader Kenseth pitted with a flat.

Stewart broke away from Clint Bowyer to take the checkered flag.

David Reutimann finished third, followed by Todd Bodine and Steve Wallace.

Besides Stewart’s fourth win, the race was the sixth victory this year for his No. 20 Toyota. Stewart’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Busch and Hamlin have also each won in the car this year. It was eighth overall win for JGR.

Kenseth was involved in the one of the night’s ugliest accidents, slamming into the inside retaining wall. But the former Sprint Cup champion climbed out of the broken car and waved to the large crowd he was OK.

The hard crash stopped the race for about seven minutes to clean up fuel, oil and debris.

Kenseth said the crash came from him aggressively trying to get back the lap he lost earlier. “It’s very frustrating. We let one get away,” he said. Kenseth wasn’t the only Sprint Cup star who had trouble.

Hamlin had won the past two Nationwide races here and was a strong bet to make it three in a row. Besides winning from the pole in 2006 and 2007, Hamlin’s Toyota was the quickest in practice on Darlington’s fast, new blacktop.

Maybe a bit too fast, though, as Hamlin scraped the wall during afternoon qualifying and didn’t make the race.

Then pole-sitter Carl Edwards’ night ended after hitting the wall twice his first three laps.

Perhaps, Edwards overthought the effect of the fresh surface. He swapped starting positions with No. 2 qualifier Clint Bowyer, moving closer to the wall. Edwards figured he’d get loose, he said, and didn’t want to wreck down low amidst grid traffic.

Instead, Edwards slid against the outside wall soon after the start, cutting down a tire that failed completely two laps later and caused

Edwards blamed himself. “They dropped the green and I was ready to race,” he said. But “I got loose and hit the wall.”

Kyle Busch ran among the leaders the first two thirds of the race. But Busch, who’s found his share of trouble in NASCAR this season, spun into the wall after colliding with Brad Keselowski.

An angered Busch afterward called the accident the product of “racing idiots” and vowed to act the same way in future situations.

AP-ES-05-09-08 2231EDT