While in the lead, Edwards was also cognizant of tire issues that had befallen each of his three Job Gibbs Racing teammates – Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth and Denny Hamlin.
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None of it ultimately mattered with Edwards out front.
“I have the best teammates in the business”, said Edwards, who would go on to win the race, free of those kinds of tire problems. Involved cause those who liked to on Friday about how they are a couple things yesterday and I’ll practice fortunately here today. “I was nervous about it”. It was definitely a roll of the dice and as I talked to some of the crew members from Greg Biffle’s team, they received word that were to glue the fifth lug nut on to the nine sets of tires that they had already prepared with four lug nuts.
Edwards’ victory was his first of the season, punctuated by his signature back flip off his No. 19 Toyota. He finished only 258 laps en route to a 38th-place finish.
Dale Earnhardt Jr., the 13-time NASCAR Most Popular Driver, finished second, followed by rookie Chase Elliott in third. Dibenedetto’s performance, Edwards said, was unbelievable and probably tougher to achieve than his victory. “The whole sport, everybody pushes everything to the edge”. “We just have to stay consistent through what we’re doing right now”.
Edwards was leading on a restart on Lap 355 when Busch blew past him.
Realistically started 40th / 2 laps down.
The rest of the top five: Kurt Busch, Chase Elliott and Trevor Bayne.
Bristol’s high-banked half-mile track produces 15 second laps so every second saved during a green flag pit stop can save a driver as much as a quarter lap once the driver returns to the track. “When you’re sitting in the driver’s seat here, everything is so fast, you can jump that little rubber-you can hop over the rubber or get sideways or have trouble at any moment”, Edwards said. Honestly, that run I was backing up and I wasn’t really going to go fast.
Edwards was feeling differently inside the vehicle, however. I felt like Carl was going to be tough to beat and I was hoping to do the bump-and-run to him on the high side. “This place is insane …”
“Once I got single file there after that last restart, I was just cruising – I was just riding along”, Busch said. I have to work on my drag racing stuff. Regardless of where a driver’s pit is located, all drivers must enter the pits off turn two on the backstretch and exit at turn one at the end of the front stretch. Ryan Newman earned his second top 10 in three races with a finish of ninth, and Joey Logano got his sixth top 10 with a 10th place finish. But the real star of the show was Matt DiBenedetto, who finished a remarkable sixth in his BK Racing Toyota. And snakebitten Clint Bowyer was eighth in his best race of the season. Warming up his brakes during the final pre-race warmup lap, he stepped too firmly on the pedal. So, as 39 other cars accelerated to start the race, Earnhardt glided slowly along. “I’m not sure what happened”, Busch said, per Pockrass.
Earnhardt rolled his No. 88 Chevy onto pit road, where his crew had to reset the car’s computerized ECU (electronic control unit).
That time, Busch restarted on the inferior outside, likely with an agreement that Kenseth would let him grab the top spot, and the two once again seemed to be the best cars.
Instead of panicking, Earnhardt just drove as hard as he could.
“I’m glad it went well…” My wife, Taylor. My brother is in town from the military and I am so glad he got to experience this.
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It was the second straight race on the oldest, shortest race in the premier series that was a huge disappointment for Kenseth.
