Bristol NASCAR: Edwards wins after rain and chaos take their toll
Carl Edwards won an incident-filled and rain-interrupted NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Bristol Motor Speedway
As a host of potential race winners fell by the wayside during the twice delayed encounter, Edwards ran long on the same tyres at the end of the race to clinch victory.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr and Aric Almirola completed a surprise top three, though another late downpour meant the fourth round of the Cup season ended under a green-white-chequered flag.
After a two-hour delay to the start, Brad Keselowski and Penske team-mate Joey Logano shared the lead in the early stages, before Jimmie Johnson vaulted to the front under the first stops for fuel.
He surrendered that advantage to Matt Kenseth just before the 100-lap mark and then suffered a front-tyre blow-out that put him three laps down, while Logano encountered a power steering problem.
Kenseth led when rain forced the race to be red-flagged at a quarter-distance, and the subsequent delay lasted two and a half hours as intermittent rainfall blighted more than one attempt to get the racing back underway.
Eventually it did, and when the pace car left the track after a dozen laps, Kenseth led Jamie McMurray and Keselowski until he was rear-ended by Timmy Hill during lappery with a third of the race run, which dropped him down the order.
Kyle Busch dropped out of the lead battle with a green-flag pitstop just moments before Ryan Truex clouted the wall at Turn 3 after mid-distance, bringing out another caution, putting Kahne briefly ahead before Kenseth completed an amazing charge to take the lead back.
Kahne dropped back further as Stenhouse moved into second and then lost out to Edwards.
After another caution on lap 332 when David Ragan shunted, a period of relative calm followed until Busch lost control of his car and hit the wall.
Harvick led Edwards and Kenseth with 100 laps to go after the resultant caution, though the latter tumbled to 13th shortly afterwards.
The key moment came 26 laps later, as Edwards - along with Almirola, Hamlin and Stenhouse - stayed out as the other contenders headed for the pits under the penultimate crash-induced caution to take the lead.
Edwards had to contend with another bout of yellow flags as Harvick, pressuring Stenhouse for third, hit the wall at Turn 2 and his car caught fire, with Keselowski and McMurray also delayed in the incident.
As Stenhouse and Almirola squabbled over second at the restart, the former prevailing, Edwards was left to ease to victory even without the late caution.
Behind the front three, Tony Stewart capped a remarkable charge from 37th to finish fourth ahead of Marcos Ambrose, with Hamlin and Jeff Gordon - who suffered a bizarre pitlane incident while running third early on - recovering to complete the top seven.
Pos Driver Team/Car 1. Carl Edwards Roush Fenway Ford 2. Ricky Stenhouse Jr Roush Fenway Ford 3. Aric Almirola Petty Ford 4. Tony Stewart Stewart-Haas Chevrolet 5. Marcos Ambrose Petty Ford 6. Denny Hamlin Joe Gibbs Toyota 7. Jeff Gordon Hendrick Chevrolet 8. Kasey Kahne Hendrick Chevrolet 9. Brian Vickers Waltrip Toyota 10. Kyle Larson Ganassi Chevrolet 11. Austin Dillon Childress Chevrolet 12. Greg Biffle Roush Fenway Ford 13. Matt Kenseth Joe Gibbs Toyota 14. Brad Keselowski Penske Ford 15. Clint Bowyer Waltrip Toyota 16. Ryan Newman Childress Chevrolet 17. Justin Allgaier HScott Chevrolet 18. Danica Patrick Stewart-Haas Chevrolet 19. Jimmie Johnson Hendrick Chevrolet 20. Joey Logano Penske Ford 21. Paul Menard Childress Chevrolet 22. David Gilliland Front Row Ford 23. Josh Wise Parsons Chevrolet 24. Dale Earnhardt Jr Hendrick Chevrolet 25. AJ Allmendinger JTG Daugherty Chevrolet 26. Michael Annett Baldwin Chevrolet 27. Casey Mears Germain Chevrolet 28. Reed Sorenson Baldwin Chevrolet 29. Kyle Busch Joe Gibbs Toyota 30. Landon Cassill Hillman Chevrolet 31. David Ragan Front Row Ford 32. Alex Bowman BK Toyota 33. Travis Kvapil Go FAS Ford 34. Parker Kligerman Swan Toyota 35. Kurt Busch Stewart-Haas Chevrolet 36. Martin Truex Jr Furniture Row Chevrolet 37. Michael McDowell Leavine Ford Retirements: Jamie McMurray Ganassi Chevrolet Kevin Harvick Stewart-Haas Chevrolet Cole Whitt Swan Toyota Joe Nemechek Waltrip Toyota Ryan Truex BK Toyota Timmy Hill Circle Sport Chevrolet
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