CUP: Edwards Snaps Winless String

Sprint Cup

CUP: Edwards Snaps Winless String

Carl Edwards wins for the first time in 71 races…

Mike Hembree | Posted March 03, 2013 Avondale, AZ

Carl Edwards pulls out for the lead on the final restart while Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin battle for 2nd.

Carl Edwards, his promising Sprint Cup career shadowed by a 70-race winless string, finally returned to victory lane Sunday in the Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway.

Edwards dominated the closing segment of the race but still had to survive a green-white-checkered run to win the second event of the Sprint Cup season.

The big action occurred in Edwards’ wake as the frontrunners sailed toward the finish line.

Jimmie Johnson and Brad Keselowski took the race’s final green battling for second place, but, on the final lap, Denny Hamlin dropped to the apron on the backstretch to take a shortcut and challenge for second. He and Johnson ran side by side to the finish line, with Johnson taking second by a few feet.

Hamlin, Keselowski and Dale Earnhardt Jr. followed.

Edwards’ victory was his first since March 6, 2011. He led the final 78 laps of the race, which went into four laps of overtime.

“To be in victory lane this early in the season, to have a car like we had today, is really, really great,” Edwards said. “This win feels as good or better than any win I've ever had, so I’m very excited about it.”

The race ended with a green-white-checkered finish after Ken Schrader hit the wall with three laps to go in regulation, causing a caution.

Edwards took the final green with Keselowski pushing him from third place. Johnson later said Edwards didn’t follow restart protocol.

“You’re supposed to maintain the speed of the pace car, so I maintained the speed of the pace car, and the 99 (Edwards) is dropping back,” Johnson said. “At some point, you can’t see the guy to know when he’s going to accelerate, and that’s the goal of the leader. If he can get you looking and get out of your sight and punch it, you never have a chance to recover, and that is why the rule states that you’re supposed to maintain pace car speed.”

Edwards said he thought Johnson might be trying a slick maneuver.

“I thought, ‘Man, he's playing some kind of trick, he's speeding up,’ ” Edwards said. “I thought, ‘What's he doing?’ Usually, the guy in second hangs back a little bit and tries to watch, and he pulled up there, and I thought, ‘Man, why is he doing that?’

“Yeah, so maybe I was slowing down, but I wasn't trying to. I thought he was speeding up, and I thought it was pretty genius what he was doing because he kind of got me off of my game. But then when I went, I think maybe he wasn't looking at me or something because it seemed like he waited just a little bit too long to go.

“But, truthfully, that was not by design. I was not trying to do anything tricky. I thought he was.”

Keselowski said he “gave Carl a good push into turn one. I wish I would have used the run to try and make a pass, but I don’t think I could have pulled it off without wrecking Carl, and then I was running side-by-side with Jimmie and Denny. It was a good battle to the end. Those guys fought hard, and we fought hard, and there was a lot of desire. It’s early in the season, but I feel like there’s a lot of passion, and that’s a good thing.”

The win was the first for the team of Edwards and veteran crew chief Jimmy Fennig, who got the assignment to “fix” Edwards’ difficulties from team owner Jack Roush.

Johnson kept first place in the point standings and leads Earnhardt Jr. and Keselowski by eight going into next weekend’s race at Las Vegas. Hamlin and Clint Bowyer are tied for fourth, 18 points back.

Earnhardt Jr. led 47 straight laps before Edwards took first place for good with 78 to go. Edwards led a total of 122 laps.

Pole winner Mark Martin led the first 49 laps of the race without a significant challenge, but he pitted on lap 64, apparently because of a vibration. He lost a lap but regained it a moment later when Dave Blaney hit the wall in turn one, causing the race’s third caution. Martin got the free pass.

Martin returned to the lead 40 laps later when he stayed on the track during a caution period caused by Ryan Newman’s meeting with the wall in turn four. Newman later whacked the wall in turn one and parked his Chevrolet for the day.

The race’s first caution flew on lap 22 as Scott Riggs hit the wall in turn four.

Twenty-seven laps later, Kyle Busch lost control of his Toyota and slid into the wall, starting a series of pit stops to repair damage to the car.

The race’s worst accident occurred on lap 185 when Danica Patrick’s right front tire blew, sending her car hard into the outside wall along the frontstretch. She bounced off the wall and into the path of David Ragan, who slammed into the driver side of Patrick’s car, ripping the door from the car body.

Although the hit was one of the hardest of the season, neither Patrick nor Ragan was hurt. Ragan continued in the race with a banged-up race car.

"It was a little unexpected,” Patrick said. “I took a hard hit to the right, and then on the left (from Ragan). I'm fine. The cars and the tracks are so safe. As a driver, that's a nice feeling. It doesn't change the fact that we aren't going to get any points really coming out of today, and it would have been nice.”

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 31 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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