September 24, 2007
By Ron Felix

Edwards Celebrates Victory * CIA Stock Photo

28 year-old Carl Edwards did it again, he won on a concrete track, the high-banked, high-speed Monster Mile of Dover International Speedway. It was the third victory of the 2007 season for Edwards and the seventh of a 113 race career. Edwards, now known as "Concrete Carl" has won six time on tracks with concrete surfaces, two in the Nextel Cup Series and four in the Busch Series.

Edwards held of a hard charging teammate in the closing laps, Greg Biffle, who was hungry for a victory, but he couldn't catch Edwards. Biffle held on for second place. Edwards was turning his quickest laps near the end of the race. Edwards won the Dodge Dealers 400 by leading three times for a total of 95 laps -- but the lap leader was Matt Kenseth with a total of 192 laps but it was all for naught, Kenseth blew an engine with 25 laps to go.

"We just have to keep running like we're running," said Edwards. "It looked like a lot of the guys (in the Chase) had some bad luck today."

Edwards also had problems and overcame a throttle linkage that was sticking.

"This is not a good place to have the throttle stick, when it would stick I would have to pull it back up off the floor. I'm glad I have Bob Osborne as the crew chief. He gets the smart guy of the race award."

The victory was number 100 for Jack Roush and Roush Fenway Racing in NASCAR’s elite series. Roush’s first Nextel Cup win came in 1989 with Mark Martin in the No. 6 Stroh’s Light Ford. Martin claimed Roush Fenway Racing’s first win at Rockingham Speedway and now, 18 year’s later, Edwards’ has brought home win number 100 in the No. 99 Office Depot Ford. Roush has won with seven different drivers in NASCAR’s top series, all in Ford’s. Three of the seven have moved on but not before leaving their mark in Roush Fenway’s history books.

Several Chase driver suffered bad luck in the race. With 15 laps to go, something broke on Kurt Busch's Dodge, putting him into the wall and then triggering a twelve car pile-up.

“I just caught the fence in turn two and it collected so many top cars and everybody for that matter," explained Busch. "It’s tough when everybody puts a lot of hard work into building these cars and one little problem like that took out a lot of cars. It was a nice top five that was developing, we actually had thirty lap fresher tires then anybody and something broke.”

Martin Truex Jr, winner at this track in the spring race, running in the top ten, got into Kurt Busch and it ruined a great run.

"The No. 2 just got in the wall, I don't know if he blew a tire or what," said a dejected Truex. "It was just unfortunate. The bad luck bit us today. It was a decent day, we were going to have a good finish, it is just frustrating. It was just one of those deals, you know. It's frustrating any time it happens. But that late in the race, it really sucks. When you're sitting there with 15 (laps) to go and you can smell a top five and we would have been really happy with that. We worked really hard on our car all day. It wasn't great, but we made a lot of good changes. We hung in there. We were going to get a top five and that was going to be one of them hard-earned top-fives that you're real proud of. It just sucks."

Kasey Kahne, not in the Chase, was one of the drivers also caught up in the wreck.

“We just got caught up in the wreck," said Kahne. "It happened up near the front, so the fact we had handling problems most of the day wasn’t the reason we were involved. We started off pretty good, but on the long runs the car was too tight and wouldn’t turn in the corners. It was a long day that ended a big short for us.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. brought his DEI Chevrolet home in the third spot over his DEI teammate Mark Martin. Kyle Busch finished fifth followed by Casey Mears, Jeff Burton, Jamie McMurray, Tony Stewart and Juan Pablo Montoya to round out the top ten.

Montoya turned in his fourth top-10 finish of the 2007 season. He took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the 12th time in 28 races.

“I couldn’t really find a good balance. It was either too loose or too tight and we fought that all day," said Montoya. "We just really stayed out of trouble. That was the key thing. It’s good. I’m pretty happy. The last few weeks have been annoying when we had a good car and this week we finally figured something out. It’s great to get a top-10 finish. The real key today was that we had a decent car, a 10th to 15th-place car, and we just stayed out of trouble all day.”

Denny Hamlin and Kyle Petty had an altercation in the garage after Hamlin ran into the back of Petty and wrecked him. Petty pulled Hamlin's window net down, shook his finger at Hamlin and slapped at his face shield on his helmet. That just made Hamlin mad and he jumped out ot the car to go after Petty but his crew restrained him.

"Don't smack me on the helmet. You smack me on the helmet and I'm going to punch you in the face, bottom line," said Hamlin. "So I'd like for him (Kyle Petty) to call me sometime this week, before next week. You don't come to my car; you don't come to my pit; you meet me somewhere else and we'll settle it. I have the utmost respect for Kyle, but don't lay your hands on my head. I did not say one word to him. I asked him to come over and talk to me. He chose to slap my helmet. I have a short fuse. Don't do that."

"I was battling for position and I think Kyle (Penny) was several seconds off the pace and trying to do his best to get out of the way and I think by doing that, the two cars made contact. I ran into the back of him, absolutely. But he came off the corner 10 mph slower than he had in laps before and I wasn't counting on that happening. He's trying to battle those few cars for a top 35. We're trying to battle for a championship. With these cars, you've got to gain every inch you can. And there was no sense of me pushing it there and getting myself in trouble. I just don't race like that. So there was no reason for me to run into him on purpose. I think he just blew up for the wrong reasons. All I just said was 'Come here and let me talk to you about it'. He chose to slap my helmet, you know, in hindsight, I should have grabbed his throat."

Petty simply said, "“We were a little bit loose. I guess it’s my fault. I watched the Busch race yesterday and I knew Denny (Hamlin) was sick, I just didn’t know he was hallucinating and needed three lanes to get up off the corner because he ran all over us. I guess he is in a race by himself.

“I just told him ‘he is in the Chase and I’m not’. That’s how simple it is. It’s a shame that a guy with that much talent has to drive like that. We’ve seen it a lot. We’ve seen it all year long. Even his teammate Tony Stewart talked about it. I think it pretty much speaks for itself.”

There were only six car running on the lead lap. The race featured 13 cautions for a total of 66 laps. There were 14 lead changes among nine different drivers.

The Nextel Cup Series moves to Kansas Speedway next Sunday, September 30, 2007 for the LifeLock 400. The race is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. Eastern time.



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