ALL-STAR: Edwards Wins With Strong Finish

Sprint Cup

ALL-STAR: Edwards Wins With Strong Finish

Victory slide through grass adds drama to post-race celebration…

Mike Hembree | Posted May 21, 2011 Concord, NC

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Saturday night’s Sprint All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway wasn’t a classic. In fact, it might have been one of the least inspiring in the series.

But winner Carl Edwards isn’t complaining, even after an unscheduled post-race excursion that added a tinge of embarrassment to a $1.2 million night.

Edwards led all the way over the closing 10-lap “money” segment of the 100-lap race, turning what is usually a wild final 15 miles into a runaway.

Edwards beat second-place Kyle Busch to the finish line by .443 of a second. Busch was second over the 10-lap run, but he couldn’t put himself in a position to challenge Edwards.

As he completed the cool-down lap, Edwards drove off the racing surface out of turn four with a plan to slide his car across the grassy adjacent to the track. Instead, his car bounced as it hit the grass at high speed, and it went slightly airborne. The landing crunched the car’s front end, and Edwards brought it to a stop near the start-finish line.

Smoke poured from the damaged front end of the car as Edwards climbed out the driver-side window, raised his arms in mock surprise and then performed his traditional celebratory backflip.

The winning car was done for the night. A wrecker hauled it to victory lane for the post-race celebration.

“It was a perfect night other than my slide through the grass,” Edwards said. “I almost flipped the thing over. That would have been insane. I thought I would do a nice little slide through the grass. I knew when I saw all the dirt on the windshield I was in a little trouble.”

Although Edwards appeared to have the night’s strongest car, there was no assurance that he would be in position to challenge for the win. After a competition caution brought the field to pit road for a 10-minute break before the final 10-lap run, the drivers returned to the track and then pitted again for a mandatory four-tire change.

Edwards’ team put him out front after that stop, and he outran Busch – who is almost always excellent on restarts – on the final restart to leap out front. That basically wrote finish to the race.

“My pit crew stepped up tonight,” Edwards said. “They did an unreal job. If I hadn’t come off pit road first, it would have been a tough race.”

He said he had targeted the restart.

“I’ve been practicing that little part there,” Edwards said. “There are so many parts of this sport that you have to be good at. Kyle is so good at that. I was really nervous about that last run.”

Busch said afterward that he and his team “flat out got beat. We just didn’t quite have enough when we needed it.”

The win, although not in a point race, was Edwards’ first in a Cup car at CMS. The victory made him the eighth different winner in the race over the past eight years.

And there could be more Sunday. Edwards was scheduled to fly to Iowa after the race to drive in Sunday’s Nationwide Series event at Iowa Speedway.

Following Edwards and Busch at the finish Saturday were David Reutimann, Tony Stewart and Greg Biffle.

Kasey Kahne, driver of the No. 4 Red Bull Toyota, hits the wall during the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 21, 2011 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo: Getty Images)

Early in the second of the night’s four segments, the field lost a potential winner when Kasey Kahne, running third, lost control in front of Biffle and slammed into the outside wall, causing significant damage. Kahne parked for the night.

Although Biffle was running within inches of Kahne’s bumper at the time of the incident, Biffle said he didn’t touch Kahne’s car.

David Ragan and Brad Keselowski finished one-two in the Sprint Showdown preliminary race to earn spots in the feature, but they were not factors at the front. Neither was Dale Earnhardt Jr., who won the fan vote to earn the final spot on the All-Star grid. Earnhardt Jr. finished 14th.

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 29 years. He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

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Mike Hembree

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