“I at no point felt comfortable”, said Edwards. “I haven’t done one for a while”.
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Carl Edwards of the Joe Gibbs Racing team took the checkered flag in his No. 19 Toyota Camry.
But while Edwards cruised to victory with the fastest vehicle in the eighth NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race of the season, drivers behind him suffered a litany of troubles, populating the top 10 with the most unlikely array of competitors this season. Edwards went on to win the race. It was his first win of the season, which puts him in a great position to make the season ending Chase For The Sprint Cup. In fact, he made it look easy.
Bidding to become the first rookie to win at Bristol since Dale Earnhardt in 1979, Chase Elliott ran as high as second before coming home fourth after being shuffled back in the final couple of re-starts.
“I have the best teammates in the business, and if they can have trouble, I can surely have trouble”, Edwards said.
Busch’s day went from bad to worse on Lap 260 when he lost another right-front tire and hit the wall hard enough to send his vehicle to the garage. Trevor Bayne not only got his first top five of the season in fifth, but his first top five ever at Bristol.
“I just kept getting tighter in the long run, not sure why that was”, said Busch, who had two other tire failures and was penalized for speeding off pit road. “I guess today wasn’t meant to be”.
What they do know is that Edwards won a race on a day when all three of his teammates had tire issues. Denny Hamlin finished 20 and Kyle Busch 38 Was Edwards anxious?
Earnhardt had to overcome a dead battery that stalled his No. 88 Chevy at the start and initially left him two laps down. Then Matt Kenseth’s right front went down. “We gained some spots just being in the right lane”. Money times that you run in the fourth auto someone will be tracked this down every lap times.
But it’s not often when trouble comes to teams that seem to spread out over multiple teams but at the same time is only centralized to certain drivers, or organizations. “Just really proud of these guys and thank you to everybody that makes this happen”.
It doesnt matter; long race, well be fine, Busch said after Fridays qualifying. I shouldn’t be happy about finishing third, but I’ll take it. “Greg worked hard to get my laps back from early in the race”.
UP NEXT: Richmond International Raceway on April 24. The 2014 series champion finished eighth in the Food City 500 for his seventh placing in the Top 10 in eight races. “For me it’s probably one of the most physically and mentally toughest racetracks we race at on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series circuit”.
He did, however, end with his career-best Sprint Cup finish at fourth.
– The record will show that polesitter Carl Edwards won Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway in dominating fashion, leading 276 of 500 laps and beating runner-up Dale Earnhardt Jr.to the finish line by.766 seconds. I’ve never attended a short track, that only allows the exact number of cars, that can start the feature, to take part in the heat races!
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After the last two caution flags, which came during the final 15 laps, Edwards restarted strong, eventually taking the checkered flag and headed for Victory Lane.
