Just eight races into the 2016 season, Carl Edwards scores his first win.
Advertisement
“I’m really, really happy with being with Dave”, Edwards said. “I haven’t done one for a while, so I nearly landed and tripped and fell backwards”.
Joe Gibbs Racing developed a serious problem on Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway.
NASCAR driver Kyle Busch hit a fan while driving his vehicle to the garage area during Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
That set up the final restart with five laps remaining, with Edwards lined up as the leader on the outside of the front row and Kurt Busch on the inside, and with Dale Earnhardt Jr., who mounted an incredible comeback, pushing Edwards from behind in the second row. “Really awesome to have a win so now we can really have some and focus on this championship”. He finally exited after his auto smacked the wall on Lap 259 and sustained heavy damage, failing to finish a race for the first time since June at MI.
“I don’t know if I’m supposed to be happy after finishing third but Ill take it”, Busch said. Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth and Denny Hamlin all suffered similar tire issues that appeared to be the result of decisions made on setups. “Different guys were faster at different times”, said Edwards.
Earnhardt had to overcome a dead battery that stalled his No. 88 Chevy at the start and initially left him two laps down. That cost us two laps early in the race, and we worked real hard. Then Matt Kenseth’s right front went down. “We just keep blowing right front tires and I don’t know why”, Kenseth said. “We were just lucky on those restarts as to where we lined up and that really helped us”.
Be it tire pressures or the amount of chamber used, whatever the organization was doing to make its Toyotas fast – all four drivers qualified fifth or better and Edwards and Kenseth combined to lead 418 of 500 laps – presumably triggered the lack of reliability. “You can’t be far enough ahead of these guys”.
However, it’s not just in the races that JGR shines.
It was a controversial win, though, as Dixon and his Chip Ganassi Racing team believed Pagenaud should have been penalized for crossing a blend line as he returned to the track following a pit stop. But IndyCar pointed to rules saying the penalty for bad blending ranged include a warning and the violation warranted nothing more serious. “For me it was a really tough race”.
Edwards restarted the race on Lap 356 with the lead, but quickly lost it to Ku.
Dixon wanted to see a clearer replay of Pagenaud’s move, but also disagreed on him being issued a warning.
But, this weekend had flawless weather and a great Xfinity Series race leading into the Food City 500. What NASCAR unfortunately highlighted was…the lack of competition, the series has beyond, the top fifteen cars…most of which, are often, driven by Cup drivers. The manufacturer has won all three races this season and the Honda camp has been complaining that they are at a disadvantage.
Advertisement
Dixon teammate Tony Kanaan was sixth and Penske driver Will Power seventh. For other drivers and owners, that has to be a frustrating realization. Kurt joins Edwards as the only two drivers to not only win two poles, but win them consecutively. The team combined to lead 418 of the 500 laps in Sunday’s race; that’s almost 84%.
