Edwards’ crew key to comeback victory
Last pit stop wins it after early flat puts him two laps down.
Car owner Joe Gibbs beamed about this team victory: Carl Edwards drove superbly, crew chief Darian Grubb made stellar calls with his car two laps down, and the crew got it out of the pits in first when it counted.
The result on Sunday night was Edwards’ first Southern 500 victory at Darlington Raceway.
“If you drew this one up, I don’t think you could draw a bigger victory for us,” Gibbs said.
Edwards was two laps down after his Toyota got a flat tire around lap 90 of 367 on the 1.33-mile track. He was in 36th place on lap l40. But 40 laps from the end, he was pushing pole-sitter Brad Keselowski and defending race champion Kevin Harvick.
Edwards beat Keselowski’s Ford off pit road 12 laps from the end for the lead. He held on to edge Keselowski by .902 seconds.
Edwards won the Coca Cola 600 in May and had six top-10s in the past seven NASCAR Sprint Cup races. Still, he was look- ing for a boost that would propel his first-year Joe Gibbs Racing program into the 10-race Chase playoff, which begins Sept. 20 at Chicago.
“We needed a shot in the arm,” said Edwards, who is 12th in points.
NHRA: Morgan Lucas, a part-time NHRA driver, got his first U.S. Nationals victory by defeating Dave Connolly in the Top Fuel final Monday at Brownsburg, Ind. Lucas clocked a 3.864-second pass at 319.90 mph. Jack Beckman got his sixth Funny Car win of the season and enters the six-race NHRA playoffs as the top seed.