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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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