Edwards flips at Bristol win

Driver gets his first victory since September as tire issues take out his JGR teammates.

BRISTOL,TENN. — CarlEdwards took his first celebratory back flip of the season and easily stuck the landing.

“I considered not doing it,” he said. “I haven’t done one for a while.”

He earned that acrobatic moment because his No. 19 Toyota gripped Bristol Motor Speedway much better than his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Sunday.

Edwards avoided the tire issues that plagued his teammates and took off on the final restart to win the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Food City 500 on the halfmile bullring.

In fact, he made it look easy.

Starting on the pole for the second straight week, Edwards’ Camry led eight times for 276 of 500 laps en route to his first victory since September at Darlington and his fourth overall at Bristol. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was second, followed by Kurt Busch, Chase Elliott and Trevor Bayne.

“We didn’t have any trouble, and that’s just a testament to everyone at the shop and whole team,” said Edwards, who now trails new points leader Kevin Harvick (seventh) by a point.

“It’s really awesome to have a win so we can really have fun and focus on the championship.”

Edwards’ flawless day contrasted the right-front tire problems endured by teammates Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth and Denny Hamlin after all started in the top five.

Busch, the defending series champion and points leader coming in, had trouble throughout the race. He finally exited after his car smacked the wall on Lap 259 and sustained heavy damage, failing to finish a race for the first time since June at Michigan.

“I just kept getting tighter in the long run, not sure why that was,” said Busch, who had two other tire failures and was penalized for speeding from pit road. “I guess it wasn’t meant to be.”

Kenseth led three times for 142 laps and seemed to be one of the few drivers capable of challenging Edwards before his day ended early after he cut a right front tire a second time and hit the wall.

Hamlin had problems too, enough to cause Goodyear to announce it would examine all of those tires from Busch and Kenseth to determine if the failures were due to the tire makeup or the aggressive setups drivers use at the high-banked track.

Earnhardt had to overcome a dead battery that stalled his No. 88 Chevy at the start and initially left him two laps down.

MATT HAZLETT / GETTY IMAGES Carl Edwards earned his fourth career win at Bristol, finishing first Sunday in his No. 19 Toyota. He led the Food City 500 Sprint Cup race eight times for 276 of the 500 laps in his first win of the 2016 season.