Las Vegas ? Joe Nemechek benefited from Todd Bodine’s mistake to inherit the lead, then hung on to win the Busch series race Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Bodine was leading with 32 laps to go in the Sam’s Town 300 and racing Nemechek side-by-side through Turn 4 when he spun out and went sliding through the frontstretch grass.

Nemechek sailed by for the lead in his Chevrolet and held on for his 13th career Busch victory.

“I don’t know what was going on there,” Nemechek said. “He was underneath me and went up high, and I tried to crowd him. I don’t know if he lost a tire or what, but he got loose there.”

It was Nemechek’s first Busch race of the season. He sat on the pole at the season-opener in Daytona, but was too ill on race day to drive.

Fellow Winston Cup driver Kevin Harvick was second, 0.603 seconds back, and was followed by Mike Bliss, Cup driver Steve Park and Jason Keller.

David Green was sixth, followed by Michael Waltrip, Stanton Barrett, Ron Hornady and Scott Wimmer.

Bodine ended up 19th.

The race was delayed 58 minutes by rain, a recurring theme so far this season. The Busch race was delayed two days last weekend at North Carolina Speedway, and qualifying was washed out here Friday.

Joe Nemechek celebrates in victory circle after winning the Sam's Town 300 Busch series race. Nemechek won Saturday in Las Vegas.

Jamie McMurray, last week’s race winner, wrecked his primary car in an accident Friday night in practice. He came back Saturday a little sore and in a backup car covered with thousands of signatures because it has lately been used as a show car at appearances.

But he had moved it up from the back of the field into second place after the rain delay, only to see his day ruined on the restart when it had either an ignition problem or a battery problem.

Jeff Burton saw his chances at a fifth win at Las Vegas — he has two Busch Series wins and two Winston Cup wins — go up in smoke.

Burton’s car erupted in fire and thick, black smoke while he was in second place and driving around the track under caution. Before then, he was the only driver able to pass then-leader Harvick.

“An oil line must have broken or come loose or something, because we were sitting there running and the thing was really, really fast,” Burton said. “Then, all the sudden it really picked up a bad push, and I thought a tire was going down, so I kind of slowed down.

“Next thing I know, I looked in the mirror and there’s fire coming out from under it. So I don’t know what happened, but it’s a shame. The car was really fast and we had a chance to do some great things today with it.”