Carl Edwards takes Food City 500

BRISTOL, Tenn. — Carl Edwards led more than half of the Food City 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday, running up front for 276 laps of the 500-lap distance on his way to his first win of the season and the fourth of his career at Bristol.

“Just awesome,” Edwards said. “This is a real testament to my team. The guys have been working really hard. We’ve got Comcast Business folks here, and they helped put this whole thing together with ARRIS and Toyota, TRD, Stanley — all the folks that made this 19 team happen. Just great and so awesome. Thanks to Sprint and Cessna and all the folks that make this happen. Now we’re in the Chase, and we can go have some fun. Just so cool; awesome to be here.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kurt Busch traded second position back and forth with a handful of laps remaining. Earnhardt won that battle, taking second after starting the race two laps down. He headed to pit road at the start of the race when he couldn’t get up to speed at the green flag.

Earnhardt stayed out and took wave-arounds during two early-race cautions to get back on the lead lap.

“We had a dead battery at the start of the race — something bad like that. Same thing, I think happened to the No. 22 (Joey Logano). That cost us two laps early in the race, and we worked real hard. Greg (Ives, crew chief) did a great job helping us get our laps back. The car was about a 15th or 10th-place car. We were just lucky on those restarts as to where we lined up. And that really helped us.”

Busch wound up third, while rookie Chase Elliott and Trevor Bayne finished fourth and fifth respectively. Elliott, like Earnhardt, also was two laps down at one point because of an unscheduled pit stop for a loose wheel.

“I just had a really good Kelley Blue Book/NAPA Chevrolet,” Elliott said. “The guys brought a fast car here this weekend. Started off a little slow. I didn’t qualify as well as we wanted on Friday, but we hit on a couple of things, I thought, right there towards the end of final practice yesterday that we really liked. Fortunately that carried over to today, and I was able to move forward. I hated to have a loose wheel, but stuff happens.”

Edwards was joined up front by his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates — Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth and Denny Hamlin — at the start of the race, but he was the only driver of the four to have a flawless day while all three of his teammates had issues, primarily with right-front tires.

“There was some concern, but for some reason, with our car, we didn’t have any of those issues,” Edwards said. “Just really proud of these guys and thank you to everybody that makes this happen. This team is awesome and Dave (Rogers, crew chief) doesn’t quit. He can almost read my mind; he can tell me things in the race right when I needed them. It was just a good day.”

Kenseth dominated early, leading 142 laps by the time he hit the wall as a result of a tire problem on lap 187. Another tore issue on lap 323 sent Kenseth into the wall a second time after he had gotten back up to third in the running order.

“We just keep blowing right-front tires,” Kenseth said. “I don’t know why. The first one was a little confusing. I knew I blew a right-front, but I thought they were telling me it wasn’t flat, so I was a little confused. This one just blew a lot earlier and the angle was a lot worse hitting the wall. We really weren’t very tight; our Dollar General Camry was pretty fast today. I was encouraged, again, today, even though we don’t have the result.”

Hamlin’s car sustained significant damage on pit road early in then the race and then wrecked because of a flat tire on lap 410.

The other JGR driver, Busch, struggled throughout the day, being the reason for three cautions and serving two pit-road speeding penalties. His efforts were finally put out of their misery when he hit the wall on lap 260 and headed to the garage.

Edwards took over where Kenseth left off with most of his laps led coming in the second half of the race. Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch did each take the lead from Edwards, with Harvick leading 13 laps and Busch 41 before Edwards retook possession of the top spot with just over 100 laps to go.

“There were so many different things happening out there,” Edwards said. “Different guys were fast a t different times. I have to work on my drag racing stuff. Kurt has those restarts figured out. He was tough.”

Landon Cassill also led 20 laps just past the halfway point of the race after staying out under caution.

Matt DiBenedetto claimed his first-career top-10 by finishing sixth. Harvick finished seventh, and Clint Bowyer, Ryan Newman and Joey Logano finished eighth through 10th, respectively.

Notes: Kyle Busch and Kurt Busch are tied for most wins among active drivers at Bristol Motor Speedway with five apiece. … Kyle Busch won the two most recent Sprint Cup Series races heading into the Food City 500. … Matt Kenseth won the 2015 Food City 500. … Joey Logano headed into the race weekend as the most recent Bristol weekend, winning the 2015 Irwin Tools Night race for the second-straight year.