(photo courtesy Leon Hammack)
Carl Edwards dominated the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 by leading 169 laps of the 200 lap race Friday night at the Texas Motor Speedway enroute to his first victory, the Ford Mustang’s first victory, in the Nationwide Series in 2011.
“This is a huge night for Mustang and Ford and this is a true team effort,” Edwards said. “A year ago we were struggling. We were not fast enough and Jack (Roush) and all the guys at the shop, the engineers, Doug Yates and everyone pulled together. We have great engines now and great pit stops and Mike Beam puts the fastest car on the race track underneath me every week and Jack lets us go do all this. The pole today we talked about that pole run being a true team effort. It is a good day. It ended the way you wish every race would. Teamwork led us to victory lane.”
What started out to be a duel between the Ford Mustang of Carl Edwards and the Toyota Camry of Kyle Busch, ended abruptly on lap 88. Busch was tagging along on Edwards rear deck lid, in second place, when the pair came upon a straggler. Just as Edwards was passing, and Busch was approaching, the soon-to-be lapped car, Tim Schendel, the lapped car blew a right front tire. Busch was unable to avoid Schendel’s car and piled directly into that car and ultimately ended up end the fence. That wreck brought Kyle Busch’s evening to an abrupt halt!
“There was no time to react,” Busch said. “You can’t just stomp on the brakes and turn left, you’re already maxed out with your tires. It’s real unfortunate – these guys did a great job working all weekend to get the car capable of running with Carl (Edwards) there. They unloaded a lot better than we did and we just worked really hard getting to that point where we could run with those guys. I felt like we were better on the long run with this Z-Line Designs Camry, just didn’t quite make it, obviously. It’s going to go down as a wreck, but I felt like we were fast enough to win.”
Edwards admitted that Busch could have given him trouble had he not crashed.
All in all, the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 was a very good race. However, it would have been a much more exiting race had not ol Kylie crashed out early in the race. I think that it would have been a “Carl and Kyle Shootout” in the end for the victory.
What are your thoughts?
Here is the unofficial results from the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300 at the Texas Motor Speedway.
TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!
