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DARLINGTON, S.C.—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. Fellow Sprint Cup stars Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth and Mark Martin had their nights ended by wrecks.

Stewart made it through nine cautions, one 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.

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.