Carl Edwards made it back to back wins in the NASCAR Busch series by backing up his victory at Bristol with taking the checkers in the Pepsi 300 at the Nashville Superspeedway.
Edwards, last season’s defending race winner marked his third win at the track (1 truck, 2 Busch) by landing his trademark back flip before thanking his crew and the fans in victory lane.
Edwards who started eighth ran in and out of the top five for the majority of the afternoon. The team reported trouble with a right front tire and Edwards would report a vibration through the end of long runs, subsequently loosing track positions.
During the final rounds of pit stops, Edwards spent additional time on pit road to make sure the stud problem was corrected. By doing so the team lost two positions but Edwards, being class of the field quickly came up to the point passing Jason Leffler on lap 200 for the lead and began amassing a 4.673 second margin to win his eleventh series race of his career.
Finishing behind Edwards were a strong contingent of Toyota drivers as David Reutimann, Davey Blaney and Jason Leffler finished second through fourth with Ragen Smith in a Chevy rounding out the top five.
The race was slowed by caution six times and ther were seventeen lead changes among nine drivers.
The event marked the second free standing event of the 2007 season. Many of the double duty cup drivers choose to take the weekend off. The impact on the points was significant as Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth, Juan Montoya, and Greg Biffle all were top ten in the points standing and choose to sit out Nashville.
Leaving Tennessee, Edwards has a 312 point margin over Dave Blaney in the Championship standing. Last year’s champion Kevin Harvick is 392 markers out of the top spot despite of missing two races.
Next week the series heads to Texas Motor Speedway for the Oreilly 300 were Kurt Busch is the defending race winner.
Series notes
David Stremme won the pole and set a new track record at Nashville. Stremme looked to be the car to beat but a pit road penalty moved him back in the pack. The team rallied to finish eleventh.
The series all time money winner Jason Keller returned to the series driving the number twenty seven Cottonelle, Dollar General Ford. Keller qualified the car seventeenth but wound up thirty third after a lap 133 incident.
Richard Childress Racing announced that veteran Kenny Wallace will drive an RCR entry at Gateway this year. Wallace a former series standout considers Gateway his home track and with an RCR entry he has a shot of a victory lane homecoming.
Following Bristol the Hendrick Motorsports entry driven by Kyle Busch was fined for has improper jacking bolts on the car.
Used Honda Civic
All Edwards did was screw up what would have been an excellent Busch Series Race. Edwards better hope that he wins the Busch Championship this year because that’s probably the only Championship he will ever win. If I was ESPN, I’d ask for a refund.