Gladeville, Tenn. ? David Green passed Johnny Sauter on the backstretch of the final lap Saturday to win the Pepsi 300 at the Nashville Superspeedway.

Green won for the first time on the NASCAR Busch Series since June 1996 and has six overall series victories. With the Winston Cup Series in Virginia this week, the 1994 Busch champion also became the first Busch regular to win this season.

Green led only four times for a total of nine laps the entire race, and he was running fourth with 17 laps left. But he drove his Pontiac through the traffic and worked his way up as he picked off Mike Bliss for third, then chased down Ashton Lewis Jr. and passed him in Turn 4 of the next-to-last lap.

Green said he didn’t remember much of the final three laps.

“I had to call on my car again, and my car didn’t let me down all day long. I was able to drive up underneath those guys,” he said.

Sauter finished 0.28 seconds behind Green. Lewis was third, followed by Bliss. David Reutimann was fifth as Chevrolets filled four of the top five spots in a race with an average speed of 122.724.

Sauter, who led 22 of the final 23 laps, said he knew then that he wouldn’t win for the second time in his career because Green had the strongest car.

“I hate to use the term sitting duck, but I did feel like a sitting duck. I saw Ashton trying to use him up, and I thought his was good. Once David got by him, I knew I was history. I was really disappointed. I feel like our motor hurt us today,” Sauter said.