NSCS: Carl Edwards Dominates in Thunder Valley En Route to Victory

Carl Edwards can now say that he is a race winner this season as he would dominate the Food City 500 from the pole en route to scoring his first victory of the season.

“Just a real testament to our team – we have really fast race cars,” he said. “Those restarts are tough, everybody is so good. Kurt (Busch) does an amazing job, I don’t know if his drag racing or something is paying off, but I have to learn what he’s doing. He could get so much grip down on the bottom. Just a lot of fun, really good day and really proud of my guys – flawless on pit road. This is such a special place to win and really proud of my team.”

Edwards would take the lead for the final time with 99 laps to go, holding off the field in a slew of restarts to finish off the race to score his 26th career victory.

While he was the story of the day, there were many drivers whom will remember their comebacks when looking at race results.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. would finish second after going two laps down in the first five laps due to an electronic control unit issue at the start of the race. It marks his second straight top-five finish.

“We had a lot of luck on those last several restarts,” he said. “You start on the outside and just gain some spots just being on the right lane. We didn’t have a good enough car to run in the top 5 today, but Greg (Ives, crew chief) and those guys did a great job getting our laps back. We had a dead battery at the start of the race; something bad like that, same thing I think happened to the No. 22 (Joey Logano). That cost us two laps early in the race and we worked real hard. Greg did a great job helping us get our laps back. The car was about a 15^th or 10^th place car. We were just lucky on those restarts as to where we lined up.  And that really helped us.”

Kurt Busch would have a quiet day en route to finishing third, while Chase Elliott rebounded from a loose wheel at Lap 175 to post a fourth-place finish. It marks his best career finish in the Sprint Cup Series, and his second straight top-five.

“I just had a really good Kelley Blue Book/NAPA Chevrolet,” he commented. “The guys brought a fast car here this weekend. Started off a little slow. I didn’t qualify as well as we wanted to on Friday, but we hit on a couple of things, I thought, right there towards the end of final practice yesterday that we really liked. Fortunately that carried over to today and I was able to move forward. I hated to have a loose wheel, but stuff happens. The guys did a good job having a good pit stop under green. We only ended up losing two laps and that gave us a shot to get back. One down, and then trying to get back to the lead lap. It was a long day but I’m definitely proud of the effort. We’re chipping away, just not close enough.”

Trevor Bayne ran solidly in the top-10 all day en route to finishing fifth, followed by Matt DiBenedetto with his best career finish with a sixth. Kevin Harvick finished seventh, followed by Clint Bowyer, Ryan Newman and Joey Logano. For Bowyer, it marks his first top-10 of 2016.

Thunder Valley wasn’t friendly to everyone, though, as while Carl Edwards won the race, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates struggled with tire issues. Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth and Denny Hamlin would all get into the wall as a result of a right front flat tire. For Busch, it ends his win-streak at two victories.

“I have no idea,” Busch said. “I just kept getting tighter in the long run, not sure why that was. We had a really great car yesterday and we were fastest in practice. I felt really good about things for today. I guess it wasn’t meant to be. I hate it for all these guys, all the work and effort and everybody at M&M’s – all our M&M’s and Mars associates. Not a day we were hoping for. We had a really fast car. We drove up from the back to the front a couple times and showed what we were made of, but obviously it doesn’t matter when you’re in the garage.”