Carl Edwards dominated this week’s NASCAR event, leading 276 of the 500 laps to claim victory from the pole position in the Food City 500 in Bristol, Tennessee. Edwards proved that his qualifying effort was not a fluke by finding his way to the front of a jam-packed field all race long. The #19 Comcast Toyota driven by Carl Edwards finished .766 seconds in front of second place finisher Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Although Carl Edwards made the event look easy, many other drivers at the top of the standings struggled to find consistency and keep their hot-rods out of trouble. The whole stable of Joe Gibbs Racing drivers besides Edwards couldn’t overcome serious on track issues and finished out of the top ten.
“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. “It started on Friday well, started this winter building these cars. But the car was really fast in qualifying, got the first pit stall, and that meant a lot to the guys. They were just flawless on pit road. The car was really fast, and (crew chief) Dave (Rogers) did a good job of managing everything.
Kyle Busch was the first top Joe Gibbs Racing driver to go down when his #18 M&M’s Toyota Camry blew two tires and bashed into Bristol’s unforgiving walls. Busch was seeking his third straight win, but settled for a 38th place finish.
Matt Kenseth’s car took him to the front for 142 laps. It was not to be for the #20 Dollar General Toyota Camry when it also blew a right front in turn two on lap 188 and careened into the outside wall. Kenseth would finish two spots ahead of teammate Kyle Busch in 36th place.
Denny Hamlin, who started in the fourth position, was racing up front when amazingly he too suffered the same fate as his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates. Hamlin suffered a blown right front around lap 410 and limped to a 20th place finish.
The #4 ditech Chevrolet of speedster Kevin Harvick very well could have been the fastest car towards the end of the contest, but being stuck on the inside during race re-starts cost him. On three different occasions, Harvick drew the inside position which was a disadvantage all race long and ended up getting passed for a seventh place spot.
Crowd favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr. had another outstanding finish. Even though the #88 Nationwide Chevrolet did not lap, he managed to drive towards the front towards the end of the race and finish runner-up to race winner Carl Edwards. The feat was more amazing because the driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet inadvertently activated the “kill” switch on his car at the start of the race by applying too much brake pressure. Earnhardt coasted onto pit road and lost two laps while his team had to reboot the electronic control unit.
“Just warming the brakes up, I engaged that system to kill the throttle,” Earnhardt said of the early trouble. “I was warming the brakes up like I always do, and apparently I applied too much pressure and it killed the motor. We’ll work on that and maybe raise that threshold a little bit, because I wasn’t really using the brake that much.”
What stands out about the Food City 500 is that while Edwards raced to victory with the fastest car, relatively unknown competitors populated the top 10. Consider that Sunoco Rookie of the Year candidate Chase Elliot posted a career best fourth-place result a week after recording a career best fifth at Texas. Matt Dibenedetto came finished in sixth, scoring a best-ever finish and Clint Bowyer came back from laps down to run eighth, his first top-10 and third lead-lap finish of the season.
Final Results for the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway:
1. (1) Carl Edwards, Toyota, 500 laps, 45 points.
2. (20) Dale Earnhardt Jr., Chevrolet, 500, 39.
3. (26) Kurt Busch, Chevrolet, 500, 39.
4. (19) Chase Elliott, Chevrolet, 500, 37.
5. (10) Trevor Bayne, Ford, 500, 36.
6. (30) Matt DiBenedetto, Toyota, 500, 35.
7. (7) Kevin Harvick, Chevrolet, 500, 35.
8. (36) Clint Bowyer, Chevrolet, 500, 33.
9. (17) Ryan Newman, Chevrolet, 500, 32.
10. (3) Joey Logano, Ford, 500, 32.
11. (18) Ryan Blaney, Ford, 500, 30.
12. (23) Greg Biffle, Ford, 500, 29.
13. (13) Jamie McMurray, Chevrolet, 500, 28.
14. (8) Martin Truex Jr., Toyota, 500, 27.
15. (14) Paul Menard, Chevrolet, 500, 27.
16. (32) Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Ford, 500, 25.
17. (11) Kasey Kahne, Chevrolet, 500, 24.
18. (12) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 500, 23.
19. (9) AJ Allmendinger, Chevrolet, 500, 22.
20. (4) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 500, 21.
21. (21) Chris Buescher, Ford, 500, 20.
22. (28) Landon Cassill, Ford, 500, 20.
23. (6) Jimmie Johnson, Chevrolet, 499, 18.
24. (16) Casey Mears, Chevrolet, 499, 17.
25. (34) Ty Dillon, Chevrolet, 499, 0.
28. (39) Cole Whitt, Chevrolet, 496, 13.
29. (31) Michael McDowell, Chevrolet, 495, 12.
30. (27) Brian Scott, Ford, 493, 11.
31. (40) Michael Annett, Chevrolet, 492, 10.
32. (37) Jeffrey Earnhardt, Ford, 488, 9.
33. (35) Josh Wise, Chevrolet, 482, 8.
34. (22) Aric Almirola, Ford, 479, 7.
35. (25) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, 462, 6.
36. (2) Matt Kenseth, Toyota, 460, 6.
37. (29) Regan Smith, Chevrolet, accident, 451, 4.
