With the exception of race victor Carl Edwards, Joe Gibbs Racing was besieged by tire problems on Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway.
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On Lap 52 of the 500-lap event, Busch’s No. 18 JGR Toyota blew a right-front tire and hit the wall.
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Busch’s final smack into the ball was his hardest of the day, leaving him with a battered auto that marked its territory with a path of oil. And a 38 place finish should be and that’s the most Kyle Busch from the point lead.
Columbia’s Carl Edwards nails his first win of the year, guarantees himself a spot in the championship chase at the end of the season, and gets to do his first victory backflip since winning at Darlington last September.
He wasn’t the only driver who had to deal with the conditions, either, and he may just be frustrated by his struggles at Bristol after dominating the course for so long.
The only good thing that happened was Earnhardt Jr. took the wave around, which allowed him to get one of his laps back, leaving him just one lap down.
“I feel like we can go each and every week and have a legitimate chance to win”, he said, “which is probably the first time in my career that I’ve had that”. One point behind the leader is Edwards, who has also finished seven of the eight races to this point among the Top 10. Even Earnhardt’s second-place finish was an anomaly.
“We’re working with the team to try to understand what it might be and solve the problem together”, he said. We didn’t have a vehicle to be able to run in the top five, but we caught cautions at the right time and were able to get the laps back.
2005 victor under old layout runner-up last fall, his first top 5 there since 2008.
Busch and Kenseth each experienced two right-front tire failures Sunday.
FLYING FLAGS: The race featured 15 cautions for 102 laps.
“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. They were just flawless on pit road.
In between, Edwards was totally in control, leading more than half the race – 276 of 500 laps – and capped the afternoon screaming “that’s what I’m talking about”. “You’ve got somebody that’s making all those calls, and I’ve been there – same thing in football”. After capturing the pole, Edwards ran out front, while the rest of his team dealt with major issues with tires and hitting the wall. “We drove up from the back to the front a couple of times today and showed what we were made up; obviously it doesn’t matter when you’re in the garage”, he said. “And we weren’t really that good”.
She finished 29th there in just her fourth career Sprint Cup race in August 2012, which included an an accident not of her making. While Edwards was comfortably cruising to the win, the battle for the podium raged on behind him.
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Edwards won the Bristol race in March 2014, earned his third pole at the track. Kevin Harvick pulled in to first place in the NASCAR Sprint Cupdrivers standings after another Top 10 finish.
