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After losing the 2011 Sprint Cup Championship to a tie-breaker Carl Edwards started the 2012 as the man to beat. When he won the pole for the Daytona 500 last year that confirmed it.
Then the wheels virtually fell off after that. Actually his last win went back to 2011at Las Vegas and that drought continued for 70-races ending at the one mile Phoenix International Raceway oval.
On Sunday in Phoenix Carl declared he was back, back in word and back in deed. He lead 122-laps of the 316-lap race, including the final 78, for his 20th career win in Sprint Cup.
In Victory Lane, after his Carl Edwards-patented back flip and victory jaunt into the grandstands, Carl Edwards said “I'm telling you we're back.”
“This win feels as good or better than any win I've ever had so I'm excited about it,” Edwards added.
Coincidentally Edwards ended a previous 70-race losing streak by winning the fall race in 2010 in Phoenix.
Despite all those laps led the win wasn't as easy as it sounds. The race ended with a green-white-checkered finish which saw third-place Denny Hamlin make a potentially dangerous dive into the dogleg area to challenge Jimmie Johnson, last week's Daytona 500 winner, who ended up second.
Johnson said “Denny got a huge run, cleared us (and Brad Keselowski who finished fourth) both. I thought I had a chance just to beat him back to the finish.
I didn't expect Denny to get up in front of us like he did. I thought we were going to enter three wide, and I was going to be in the worst spot.”
If the race went to Edwards the single performance of the day belonged to Hamlin.
Describing his daredevil-like maneuver Hamlin said “I wasn't concerned too much. I was committed. I just hope that I would have slid in front of Johnson, but, you'd get punted (if you don't do it well). I held my line and thought I did the right thing. We overachieved a ton today.”
Pole sitter, Mark Martin, the second oldest driver in NASCAR to do so, led twice for 75 laps but the wrong choice of tires, two instead of four, in the pits eventually put him out of sequence. He finished 21rst.
Danica Patrick, who turned the NASCAR on its' ear last week leading laps from the pole at Daytona, struggled to 40th in qualifying then had a tire problem in the race which caused a big wreck with multiple wall contacts on lap 185. She would finish 39th.
"Obviously I blew a right front,” Patrick said adding “no real warning.”
As for the intensity of the hit “Oh, probably Daytona (last year) was a little bit bigger. And it was on the right and the left. So whenever those right-fronts go, they always hit hard because you don't broadside. You kind of hit more straight on. But I took a hard hit on both side, but I'm fine.”
Although Edwards and new crew chief, Jimmy Fennig were concerned about having enough fuel to go the distance Edward appeared to have the race in a bag when Ken Schrader brought out the final caution on lap 311 that set up the three-lap shoot out.
“The first thing that came to my mind was, ‘now, if we win it, we really earned it,” Carl Edwards said.
He certainly did.
Then the wheels virtually fell off after that. Actually his last win went back to 2011at Las Vegas and that drought continued for 70-races ending at the one mile Phoenix International Raceway oval.
 |
| Photo: NASCAR |
On Sunday in Phoenix Carl declared he was back, back in word and back in deed. He lead 122-laps of the 316-lap race, including the final 78, for his 20th career win in Sprint Cup.
In Victory Lane, after his Carl Edwards-patented back flip and victory jaunt into the grandstands, Carl Edwards said “I'm telling you we're back.”
“This win feels as good or better than any win I've ever had so I'm excited about it,” Edwards added.
Coincidentally Edwards ended a previous 70-race losing streak by winning the fall race in 2010 in Phoenix.
Despite all those laps led the win wasn't as easy as it sounds. The race ended with a green-white-checkered finish which saw third-place Denny Hamlin make a potentially dangerous dive into the dogleg area to challenge Jimmie Johnson, last week's Daytona 500 winner, who ended up second.
Johnson said “Denny got a huge run, cleared us (and Brad Keselowski who finished fourth) both. I thought I had a chance just to beat him back to the finish.
 |
| Photo: NASCAR |
I didn't expect Denny to get up in front of us like he did. I thought we were going to enter three wide, and I was going to be in the worst spot.”
If the race went to Edwards the single performance of the day belonged to Hamlin.
Describing his daredevil-like maneuver Hamlin said “I wasn't concerned too much. I was committed. I just hope that I would have slid in front of Johnson, but, you'd get punted (if you don't do it well). I held my line and thought I did the right thing. We overachieved a ton today.”
Pole sitter, Mark Martin, the second oldest driver in NASCAR to do so, led twice for 75 laps but the wrong choice of tires, two instead of four, in the pits eventually put him out of sequence. He finished 21rst.
Danica Patrick, who turned the NASCAR on its' ear last week leading laps from the pole at Daytona, struggled to 40th in qualifying then had a tire problem in the race which caused a big wreck with multiple wall contacts on lap 185. She would finish 39th.
"Obviously I blew a right front,” Patrick said adding “no real warning.”
As for the intensity of the hit “Oh, probably Daytona (last year) was a little bit bigger. And it was on the right and the left. So whenever those right-fronts go, they always hit hard because you don't broadside. You kind of hit more straight on. But I took a hard hit on both side, but I'm fine.”
 |
| Photo: NASCAR |
Although Edwards and new crew chief, Jimmy Fennig were concerned about having enough fuel to go the distance Edward appeared to have the race in a bag when Ken Schrader brought out the final caution on lap 311 that set up the three-lap shoot out.
“The first thing that came to my mind was, ‘now, if we win it, we really earned it,” Carl Edwards said.
He certainly did.