August 26, 2007
By Ron Felix

First Short Track Win * CIA Stock Photo

Kasey Kahne led the most laps, 305 of 500, at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday night, but he got caught up in lapped traffic and lost the lead to Carl Edwards with 166 circuits to go. Edwards held the lead from that point and was never challenged for the Sharpie 500 win.

"This is the biggest win of my career," Edwards said after climbing out of the car. "Winning here at Bristol is everybody's dream. This is the night race at Bristol, 500 laps, and we won it. I am living a dream. I think every short-track racer out there dreams about this."

It was the second victory for Edwards this year, he also won at Michigan International Speedway in June. It was the sixth career win for Edwards in 109 races and he is now officially locked into the Chase for the Championship. It was the first short track victory for for the Roush-Fenway Racing driver.

"Man, those restarts were just wearing out my nerves there. That took about three or four years off of my life, I think," said Edwards. "I want to thank my fans for sticking behind us. It means a lot."

Kahne, who was going for his seventh career win and the first of the season, had to settle for second place.

“We couldn’t catch up to Edwards. Those guys did a good job," said Kahne. "They beat us to the end. We dominated I think the first half. The car was really good. We just got a little bit off, but the car felt good still at the end. He (Edwards) was just cutting through the center a touch better than me and we ran second.”

Clint Bowyer was third with Tony Stewart in the fourth spot. Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished fifth (he needed to do better) followed by Kurt Busch, Ryan Newman, Bobby Labonte, Kyle Busch and Greg Biffle to round out the top ten.

Juan Pablo Montoya finished 17th and took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the 11th time this season.

“You know, it’s my fault," said Montoya of the position where he finished after starting on the outside pole. "I’m blaming myself. I was too loose for my taste and I thought we were going to be too loose. We tightened up the car and it was just horrible. And when we tightened it up we run for 130 laps so we went a lap down there. It was hard but we had fun today, we ran good."

Points leader Jeff Gordon could only manage a 19th place showing but it allowed him to extend his lead in the Nextel Cup standings to 349 over the new second place Tony Stewart. Denny Hamlin finished 43rd after blowing an engine and now trails Gordon by 353 points.

The win was the fourth for Ford in 2007 and marked the 99th all-time Cup win for car owner Jack Roush.

"I was concerned tonight that Carl had taken the lead too early, that we had opened ourselves up to somebody else stopping for tires," said Roush. "The tires dropped off about a half-a-second in 50 laps and then the second 50 laps they would drop off another three-tenths of a second or so, so I wasn’t certain that somebody couldn’t stop with 70 laps to go.

"Kyle Busch really gave me heartburn as I saw him stop for tires. If he would have been as good as Carl, if Carl would have been where he was, I think Carl would have driven to the front and given whoever was up there a lot of trouble, but Carl and Bob and the team had a great car tonight."

This was the tenth race for the new car, and the first 125 laps ran caution free. When the race was over, there was a total of nine cautions for 61 laps and there were twelve lead changes among eight different drivers.

The Nextel Cup Series moves to California Speedway next Sunday, September 2, 2007 -- for the Sharp Aquos 500. The race is scheduled to start at 7:00 p.m. Eastern time.



For full final race results...     (Insider Racing News)
For top-40 Nextel Cup drivers points...     (Insider Racing News)