One year ago, rain in the Chase cutoff race at Phoenix cost Carl Edwards his chance to race for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship.
Sunday night at Texas Motor Speedway, Mother Nature and a lightning fast pit stop punched his ticket to the Championship round at Homestead.
In a race that saw the start delayed by some five hours because of rain, a fast pit stop put Edwards out front with 71 laps to go. When the rains returned 32 laps later, Edwards was still the leader.
A few laps later, NASCAR officials said they had lost the track, bringing out the red flag to halt the event. Moments after that, NASCAR called the race, with Edwards getting his 28th career series victory, and his third of the season.
“It doesn’t get bigger than this,” said Edwards. “My goal is to win the championship and that’s what this 19 team wanted was an opportunity to do that and now we have it. This was a great little gauntlet to run and we made it through and now we go do it at Homestead.”
The week before, a cut tire sent Edwards’ No. 19 Toyota into the wall at Martinsville Speedway, leaving him 23 laps down in 36th at the end of the day. He entered Texas 32 points out of the final transfer spot to go to the Championship round at Homestead in two weeks.
With the win, he now joins Jimmie Johnson with a guaranteed spot to battle for the title on November 20.
“This is huge,” Edwards said. “I don’t think it’s sunk in yet. This is cool. This team has really worked hard all year and man it’s just really cool. That’s all we said we needed was a shot and now we’re going to go to Homestead and we’re going to do what we have to do. This was a great test. We came here and knew what we had to do, we performed the way we needed to and I really believe we can do that at Homestead.”
Fellow Chase contender Joey Logano appeared to have the car to beat after the race went green following six laps under a green/yellow condition to help dry the track. When the race went fully green, Logano powered around polesitter Austin Dillon, and would hold the point for 178 laps on the night.
Logano lost the lead just past the halfway mark during green flag pit stops. After fighting handling issues, he pulled himself back to second on what ended up being the final restart, and was working to chase down Edwards when the rains returned, ending the race.
“We just lost our track position on a green-flag cycle and got our balance off a little bit,” said Logano. “We got it fixed and got it going and had a good restart at the end to get back to second but it seemed like we needed maybe five or 10 more laps to try to catch the 19 there. We were making up about three-tenths a lap when the caution came out. It is what it is. We are disappointed with second, which is a good thing.”
Non-Chase driver Martin Truex, Jr. came into the night looking to add to his win total in what has been a breakout year for his No. 78 Toyota team. Truex, Jr. took the lead from Logano on a green flag pit stop on lap 188, and would hold the top spot until lap 255 when a spin by Austin Dillon brought out the caution.
Truex, Jr. would lose the lead when Edwards beat him off of pit road. He would go on to finish in third.
“We battled hard,” Truex, Jr. said. “We fought. Had a great racecar at times. Looked like we were in position to have a shot at winning. Then the last pit stop, we had a little bit of an issue. Then inside restarts after that are just really tough. The leader on the outside has a big advantage. I guess all in all, happy with third, but wish we could have won tonight.”
Dawsonville, Georgia’s Chase Elliott, suffering from a bout with the flu, soldiered to a fourth place finish after running as high as third on the night. Chase contender Kyle Busch, who battled a myriad of problems from handling to a hole in the front of his car, finished in fifth.
Further back, frustration bubbled up between a pair of Chevrolet drivers. While battling for position on lap 263, Kevin Harvick made contact with Dillon as the two raced through turns 3 and 4. The contact sent Dillon’s No. 3 hard into the outside wall, bringing out the caution as Brian Scott and Casey Mears spun behind him.
Dillon was none too pleased with Harvick after the incident.
“I mean, he (Harvick) is tucked down to my door tighter than anybody did all night,” Dillon said. “He knew how tight he was on my door and that is why I got tight and slid up in front of him. He didn’t check (up), but he had the opportunity to. He didn’t like it that the silver spoon kid was out-running him tonight. So we will be alright, we have two weeks left and we just want to come out and win a race.”
Harvick insisted he didn’t intentionally get into Dillon, offering an apology.
“I just want to apologize to the 3 (car, Dillon),” Harvick said. “He kind of came up there and he slid in front of me and got loose and when he checked up I hit him again. That was not anything I wanted to see.”
While Edwards solidified his move to the Championship round and Logano and Kyle Busch had strong finishes, other Chase contenders had up and down nights.
After his dust up with Dillon, Harvick came back to finish in sixth, with Matt Kenseth in seventh and Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin in ninth.
Jimmie Johnson, who was the defending race winner, finished in 11th after gambling on a pit stop when the final caution flew, but is locked into the title round with his win last week at Martinsville.
Logano and Kyle Busch are tied in the points standings, with Matt Kenseth in fourth, one point behind the lead duo and two points ahead of teammate Hamlin. Harvick trails the transfer spot by 18 points, making a move to the final round likely dependent on a victory.
But the bright spot for Harvick is that the next race is at Phoenix International Raceway, a track he has scored eight wins at, including six of the last eight races run there. A win next Sunday will move him to the Championship finale.
The Chase driver with the biggest hole to dig out of going to Phoenix is Kurt Busch. After fighting an ill handling racecar all night, it looked like his No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing team had pulled back into contention after getting the Free Pass to get back on the lead lap on the Austin Dillon caution.
But that went sour quickly, when he was penalized a lap by NASCAR for adding fuel twice on two pit stops, which is against the rules for the Free Pass recipient.
Busch would end up finishing in the 20th position, and finds himself some 34 points out of the transfer spot. That means a must-win scenario at Phoenix to be able to move to the Championship round.
“We just missed the set-up,” Busch said. “It’s a Chase race, it’s kind of important and we missed it again.”
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Texas Motor Speedway – Fort Worth, TX
AAA Texas 500 – November 6, 2016
1. (9) Carl Edwards (C), Toyota, 293.
2. (2) Joey Logano (C), Ford, 293.
3. (12) Martin Truex, Jr., Toyota, 293.
4. (11) Chase Elliott #, Chevrolet, 293.
5. (24) Kyle Busch (C), Toyota, 293.
6. (3) Kevin Harvick (C), Chevrolet, 293.
7. (7) Matt Kenseth (C), Toyota, 293.
8. (31) Kasey Kahne, Chevrolet, 293.
9. (17) Denny Hamlin (C), Toyota, 293.
10. (18) Ryan Newman, Chevrolet, 293.
11. (19) Jimmie Johnson (C), Chevrolet, 293.
12. (8) * Ryan Blaney #, Ford, 293.
13. (16) Alex Bowman(i), Chevrolet, 293.
14. (4) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 293.
15. (5) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, 293.
16. (20) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Ford, 293.
17. (14) A.J. Allmendinger, Chevrolet, 293.
18. (25) Greg Biffle, Ford, 292.
19. (15) Jamie McMurray, Chevrolet, 292.
20. (10) Kurt Busch (C), Chevrolet, 292.
21. (30) Chris Buescher #, Ford, 292.
22. (21) Aric Almirola, Ford, 292.
23. (28) Michael McDowell, Chevrolet, 291.
24. (22) Danica Patrick, Chevrolet, 291.
25. (27) Clint Bowyer, Chevrolet, 291.
26. (32) Regan Smith, Chevrolet, 291.
27. (29) Brian Scott #, Ford, 291.
28. (6) Paul Menard, Chevrolet, 290.
29. (34) Landon Cassill, Ford, 290.
30. (26) Trevor Bayne, Ford, 289.
31. (23) Tony Stewart, Chevrolet, 288.
32. (37) Michael Annett, Chevrolet, 287.
33. (36) David Ragan, Toyota, 287.
34. (33) Jeffrey Earnhardt #, Toyota, 285.
35. (38) * Reed Sorenson, Toyota, 285.
36. (39) Joey Gase(i), Ford, 280.
37. (1) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, Accident, 262.
38. (35) * Ryan Ellis(i), Toyota, 261.
39. (13) Casey Mears, Chevrolet, Accident, 260.
40. (40) * Josh Wise, Chevrolet, Electrical, 257.
Average Speed of Race Winner: 134.541 mph.
Time of Race: 3 Hrs, 16 Mins, 00 Secs. Margin of Victory: Caution.
Caution Flags: 8 for 37 laps.
Lead Changes: 12 among 8 drivers.
Lap Leaders: A. Dillon 1-5; J. Logano (C) 6-30; D. Ragan 31; J. Logano (C) 32-74; A. Dillon 75; D. Hamlin (C) 76; Kyle Busch (C) 77-78; J. Logano (C) 79-188; M. Truex Jr. 189-222; C. Elliott # 223-224; M. Truex Jr. 225-256; C. Elliott # 257; C. Edwards (C) 258-293.
Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led): J. Logano (C) 3 times for 178 laps; M. Truex Jr. 2 times for 66 laps; C. Edwards (C) 1 time for 36 laps; A. Dillon 2 times for 6 laps; C. Elliott # 2 times for 3 laps; Kyle Busch (C) 1 time for 2 laps; D. Hamlin (C) 1 time for 1 lap; D. Ragan 1 time for 1 lap.
Top 16 in Points: J. Johnson (C) – 4,074; J. Logano (C) – 4,074; Kyle Busch (C) – 4,074; M. Kenseth (C) – 4,073; D. Hamlin (C) – 4,072; K. Harvick (C) – 4,056; C. Edwards (C) – 4,049; Kurt Busch (C) – 4,040; M. Truex Jr. – 2,265; B. Keselowski – 2,234; C. Elliott # – 2,223; K. Larson – 2,209; A. Dillon – 2,192; T. Stewart – 2,166; J. Mcmurray – 2,165; C. Buescher # – 2,143.
