August 4, 2008
By Ron Felix
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Carl Edwards Celebrates * CIA Stock Photo
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Carl Edwards won his fourth Sprint Cup race of the 2008 season and earned his second victory in the Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway on Sunday. It was the eleventh trip to the winner's circle in 142 career tries for Edwards, who held off Tony Stewart and Jimmie Johnson for second and third respectively. Edwards made up for the position in the point standings lost last week when he finished second to winner Jimmie Johnson, and still dropped one spot. The race was stopped once for rain and more bad weather was threatening but NASCAR managed to get the entire event in the books.
Edwards came in the pits just before the race was red flagged and he and his crew chief, Bob Osborne were in a heated argument as to who called for him to pit. Had the race been called at that point, Edwards would have been buried in the middle of the field somewhere, but as fate would have it, the race was resumed after about 40 minutes and he drove a very fast race car to victory.
“I thought we made the wrong call,” Edwards said. “I was feeling really nervous. I’m trying to make a little light of it, Bob and I were really arguing."
Winning car owner Jack Roush weighed in on the brief spat between Edwards and Osborne.
"I wasn’t aware about the shouting match, but the crew chief is empowered in our world to make the final decision," said Roush. "He’s the captain of the ship. The driver knows more about what’s going on right in front of him as it relates to who has gone down pit road and who didn’t go, but Bob made a courageous call.
"The thing I probably would have done, if I’d have made the call and I think most of our other crew chiefs would have done, is protected what they had – which he had a fast car, he was out front. Why would you give that up and go back in the field and take a chance on getting collected with somebody that you didn’t need to be racing with? And if the rain had come and stopped, but Bob made a decision. He thought he wasn’t gonna win it the way he was and he thought he needed to go to the back.
"There were a number of people went with him, but he was the first one, he was the head of that line, and it proved to be the right decision. You have to have a little bit of good luck going for you to win this, but unless he had the courage to do the thing he thought was right, he wouldn’t have won today and I congratulate him for that. He did the right thing. The next time it may not work out as well, but he still needs to make that decision. Whatever he feels is right is what we need to do. That’s his job.”
The runner-up effort bumped Stewart up one spot in the championship standings to ninth, with a 68-point buffer between himself and 13th-place Matt Kenseth with only five races remaining before the cutoff for the 12-driver Chase for the Championship.
“My car was really loose all day, but there at the end we got the car pretty decent,” said Stewart, who equaled his best result of the season since finishing second in round four at Atlanta Motor Speedway in March. “I can’t complain. It came to us finally and we got it to run. We were on the same strategy as a lot of other guys. We didn’t get second today because of some trick. We were on the same plan as the 99 (Carl Edwards), the 48 (Jimmie Johnson) and the 88 (Dale Earnhardt Jr.) and all those guys up front. I’m just really proud of all these guys. They stayed with it all day and all these Home Depot guys did a great job.”
Kevin Harvick somehow managed to bring his Chevrolet home in the fourth spot and that was after spinning out on the first lap in an altercation with Joe Nemechek.
"We had a good car we just got mired in traffic there at the beginning of the race and there at the end when it started raining we pitted and we had good pit strategy," said Harvick. "We were in our window right there where we only had to pit once at the end if it went green and man it went green. It was the same car that we raced at Indy last week. They turned it around and fixed half the body and brought it here. Big improvement for us. "It worked out really good there in the end.
David Ragan finished fifth and Clint Bowyer was sixth.
"We have to work on our qualifying program," said Bowyer. "Still have to work on our big track program. You have to take these good finishes when you can. Obviously I hated to give up that to Harvick. Even the No. 6 car beat us, we just have to get better. But looking forward to the road course and Michigan ahead."
Kasey Kahne led some laps but was caught up in alternative pitting strategy, could only muster a seventh.
Carl (Edwards) had the best car today, but we weren’t far off of him," Kahne said. "With a little more luck with the cautions, we probably had the car to beat.”
The same for Mark Martin, he did lead the most laps and still he finished eighth followed by Jamie McMurray and Jeff Gordon to round out the top ten.
Sprint Cup points leader Kyle Busch was running fourth with just two laps to go, ran out of fuel and had a difficult time getting the car re-fired. That relegated him to a 35th place finish. Busch lost a lot of points to second place Dale Earnhardt Jr. and now leads him by only 176. Still a comfortable margin considering there are only five race remaining on the schedule before the Chase for the Championship begins.
McDowell scored a 24th-place finish on the lead lap and took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the fourth time this season. His best finish in 16 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starts is 21st at Infineon (Sonoma, Calif.) Raceway in race No. 16.
Luck was on our side today and thank God the rain came and worked out for us the way we needed it to," said McDowell. "I think this locks us back in the top-35 and puts us back in the chase for Raybestos Rookie of the Year."
The Sprint Cup Series moves to Watkins Glen International next Sunday August 10th, 2008, for the Centurion Boats At The Glen. The race is scheduled to start at 1:00 PM / Eastern Time on ESPN. The race will also be broadcast live on SIRIUS Satellite Radio Channel 128.
For full final race results...
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