Carl Edwards outlasts Hendrick Motorsports duo to win Toyota SaveMart 350

Carl Edwards would hold off Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the final laps to win the Toyota SaveMart 350 at Sonoma Raceway.

“Real tough and that last lap was ugly,” Edwards commented. “I grew up watching Jeff Gordon do well here and to beat him is amazing. This is awesome. We have a bunch of folks from Aflac here. Got to thank everybody for what they do for us. This team seems to be working really hard and it’s special to be part of something like this.”

It marks Edwards’ second victory of the season and the 23rd victory of his Sprint Cup Series career.

Edwards kept himself on track all day and when off of a pit road at lap 72 of 110, Edwards came off near the front and was able to pass Marcos Ambrose with 25 laps to go. Edwards would then hold off a charge from Jamie McMurray on a restart with 19 to go, and held of Gordon in the late stages of the event.

“It was really tricky, but that’s the best I got – and it almost wasn’t good enough,” Edwards said.

Edwards becomes the 10th different winner in the last 10 races at Sonoma Raceway, and this race now marks the eighth straight at Sonoma with a first-time road course winner.

The second place finish for Gordon marks his 12th top-10 of 2014 as he currently leads the standings, 20 points ahead of Jimmie Johnson.

“Five laps to go – I was making ground up on him and I was just having to hit everything so perfect and I just overdrove four one time and that gave him enough of a gap,” Gordon commented. “I couldn’t put enough pressure on him and if I could’ve put more pressure on him, I could’ve got it.”

While Edwards and Gordon were among hte eight that stayed out under the final caution with 19 laps to go, Earnhardt Jr. pitted out of the sixth spot for tires. The move paid off as he drove his way through the field to score his first career top-10 finish at Sonoma.

“Just putting the tires on and getting the strategy right,” Earnhardt said. “The Kelly Blue Book Chevy was fast and almost screwed it up there a couple of times. I got into Matt there – just hopped the curb and got into him; probably shouldn’t been racing that hard there.  We’ll cut the shell off of this car and go to the Glen.”

Pole sitter Jamie McMurray finished fourth after leading nine laps.

“I’m mad that I finished fourth – if that makes sense. I thought that I had a chance to win till that last caution came out,” McMurray said. “When we went back green, I just used up too much car in one and two – spun the tires real bad – and paid for it the rest of the way.”

Paul Menard finished fifth, followed by Kasey Kahne, Marcos Ambrose, Greg Biffle and Clint Bowyer.

“It was a handful,” Ambrose commented. “I was hanging on to it all day so we have to keep working at it and get ourselves better.”

Bowyer had a race winning run going, though had a flat tire at lap 83, causing McMurray to spin him, which left Harvick no where to go.

“I feel bad for the guys,” Bowyer said. “They worked so hard and had a lot of confidence. We had another fast car and drove up through there after qualifying bad and finally get up there and had a flat tire. I was just trying to hold on and then the 1 (McMurray) car moved us out of the way and we crashed. If we keep bringing cars like that to the track, we’ll be fine. Just a disappointing day.”

Harvick would finish 20th as a result of the contact after leading 23 laps.

Defending race winner Martin Truex Jr. would finish 15th after having to claw his way back to the front following an early race unscheduled pit stop due to flat-spotting the tires.

Brad Keselowski was considered a driver to watch today, however he finished 22nd after going for a loop in turn 11 virtue of Kurt Busch. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. also had a rough day as a spin in 11 and contact from Brian Vickers handed him a 31st place finish.

Joe Gibbs Racing will also want to forget Sonoma Raceway as none of their drivers had a good day. Matt Kenseth was running inside the top 10, when Earnhardt Jr. would hit the curb and bounce into Kenseth, causing Kenseth to make heavy contact with the tire barrier. Kenseth finished 42nd.

“I knew he was there in my right side,” Kenseth said, speaking of Earnhardt. “It’s tough on restarts there and I’d run side-by-side through there before. He just plowed into my left rear there – don’t know if he got up on the curb or not.”

Teammates Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin would finish 25th and 26th, respectively, following their late race spins.

A.J. Allmendinger had a solid top five run going, though would get bumped by Earnhardt, turning him into a pinball and bouncing him off of Kahne. Allmendinger finished 37th.