Starting on the pole for the second straight week, Edwards’ Camry led eight times for 276 of 500 laps en route to his first victory since September at Darlington and fourth at Bristol. Edwards went on to win the race.
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“We didn’t have any trouble, and really it’s just a testament to everybody at the shop and our whole team”. “We worked hard”, said Earnhardt Jr. who noted that he felt his vehicle was no better than about 10th fastest in the field. Thanks to Sprint and Cessna and all the folks that make this happen. “Really awesome to have a win so now we can really have some fun and focus on this championship”. “That’s just so cool”.
But in 32 Cup races since he returned last May from injury, Busch has seven wins, 18 top-5s and 22 top-10s with 1,255 laps led. No one was more surprised to be there at the end, fighting for a podium finish, than Earnhardt, whose race got off to an auspicious start. In the Xfinity race the night before, he led 150 laps and won by 3.055 seconds. Busch, victor of the two previous Sprint Cup races, had a beat-up vehicle a quarter of the way through the race.
“This is like a win for us”. The race was not green for long before another caution came out, this one for Casey Mears wildly spinning, then saving it. Johnson received some damage, as he got bumped by another auto while trying to avoid Mears. “And that really helped us”. Finishing second was Dale Earnhardt, Jr. followed by Kurt Busch, rookie Chase Elliott and Trevor Bayne in fifth. “I was nervous about it, but Dave (Rogers, crew chief) did a good job of talking to me about how hard we were pushing the tires and what we had going on there, so I felt pretty comfortable”. “Today I made some mistakes that I’ll clean up but we were able to run better”. “You can’t be far enough ahead of these guys”. A good day is about speed. Matt Kenseth led for 142 laps, but his problems dropped the former champion to a 35place finish.
Meanwhile, Kyle Busch’s hopes of a third straight Sprint Cup victory went away early – and often – in Sunday’s race. “I don’t know why it kept getting tight and it kept blowing right fronts”. I knew I blew a right-front, but I thought they were telling me it wasn’t flat, so I was a little confused.
Kyle Busch’s vehicle hits the wall. Involved cause those who liked to on Friday about how they are a couple things yesterday and I’ll practice fortunately here today. Each driver must keep pit road speed, so drivers that pit on the backstretch are actually pulling out of their pit stalls before some of the cars reach their pit stalls on the front stretch. He lost two laps in the pits with some loose lug nuts. Edwards won, but Hamlin finished 20th, Matt Kenseth was 36th and Busch was 38th.
“It was a really great race for us”, said Edwards, who won for the first time this season, the fourth time at Bristol and the 26th time in his career. “Different guys were faster at different times”, said Edwards. “And they told me if it started hurting more to go on and get checked completely, because they didn’t have X-rays there”. Kurt has those restarts figured out.
Kevin Harvick finished seventh with Clint Bowyer, Ryan Newman and Joey Logano rounding out the top ten.
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Sunday morning in the pits at Bristol Motor Speedway before the running of the Food City 500, it was apparent that the race’s outcome could come down to a lug nut or two.
