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CONCORD, N.C. — A missed pit-road entry, a snag by the dreaded lug-nut check, and Carl Edwards still wound up on the cover of a video game.
Despite a stinging penalty just before the final 13-lap segment of the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race, Edwards manufactured a fourth-place finish with a heavy-duty rally in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 19 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
He led three times for just four of the 113 laps, but made a bigger mark with how he threaded traffic in the final dash to the checkered flag. It was enough to lay claim to his spot as the top-finishing Toyota driver, landing him on the cover of the NASCAR Heat Evolution game that debuts in September.
“We didn’t really have the fastest car and we tried to screw it up about four different times,” Edwards said with a sheepish grin. Edwards then explained how missing the entrance to pit road during the second of three segments cost the No. 19 team valuable track position, putting extra pressure on the mandatory final stop.
That stop was a fast one, helping Edwards gain four spots among those pitting. But the check for lug-nut tightness led to a thumbs-down from the NASCAR official checking the drivers’ side of the car.
“I put my guys in a box, they had to do the fastest pit stop basically you could ever do,” Edwards said afterward on pit road. “One lug nut was not all the way up, but we got it done and went to the back. We made it back up to fourth, and really after all the dust settled, if we had one more caution, I think we would’ve had a shot at it. It’s crazy, just a crazy night.”
Edwards was rewarded for his final charge after lining up in the seventh row for the final restart. The 36-year-old driver won the All-Star Race in 2011 and had more recent Charlotte history on his side with his Coca-Cola 600 victory here last May.
But he’s also had a consistently solid pit crew all year, a track record that made it hard for crew chief Dave Rogers to assign blame.
“The one thing we got going for us, we’ve got a bunch of tough guys,” Rogers said. “We’ve got a real tough driver, real tough pit crew, and nobody on this race team gives up. We didn’t do a very good job executing today, we just had a couple things go against us. That’s not the norm for us. Usually, we’re spot-on with our execution, so I’m not too worried about it, but even despite that, everyone battled down, got everything we could get, finished fourth.
“If it wasn’t the All-Star Race, you’d go home with fourth really pleased, but here it’s winner-take-all. We’ll go home and regroup for the 600 and we’ll be back next week.”
