{"id":18052,"date":"2015-09-08T14:45:27","date_gmt":"2015-09-08T21:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=18052"},"modified":"2015-09-18T17:46:15","modified_gmt":"2015-09-19T00:46:15","slug":"jgr-pit-crew-pushes-edwards-to-nascar-sprint-cup-southern-500-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/jgr-pit-crew-pushes-edwards-to-nascar-sprint-cup-southern-500-win\/","title":{"rendered":"JGR Pit Crew Pushes Edwards to NASCAR Sprint Cup Southern 500 Win"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Carl<\/a>
Carl Edwards celebrates in Victory Lane after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway on September 6, 2015 in Darlington, South Carolina.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This year\u2019s Bojangles\u2019 Southern 500 at Darlington took on the look of NASCAR in the 1970s with vintage paint schemes and uniforms as the story of the day until Carl Edwards turned Darlington into Carlington, whipping the field on his way to his first victory at NASCAR\u2019s oldest superspeedway and 25th<\/sup> of his career.<\/p>\n

Edwards took the lead on pit road after the last caution flag in his Arris Toyota when his Joe Gibbs Racing team conducted a lightning fast pit stop, getting him out front of then leader and pole winner, Brad Keselowski, with 11 laps to go.\u00a0 \u00a0He held off the field on the restart and set sail winning his second Sprint Cup event of the season by 0.092 over Keselowski at the Lady in Black additionally winning the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte in May.<\/p>\n

NASCAR implemented the low-downforce package for Darlington, putting the steering wheel back into the hands of the drivers and at Darlington that meant saving your tires, staying off the wall and keeping your car in the tight groove.\u00a0 Most drivers said they preferred this setup and wish NASCAR would keep it for the Chase, but won\u2019t.<\/p>\n

“I don\u2019t think I can get in trouble for how much I liked it, but I loved it \u2013 this is as good as it gets,” said a beaming Edwards. \u00a0“This is what it\u2019s about. \u00a0We\u2019re sliding cars, tires are falling off \u2013 this is the style of racing [that you want] \u2013 if there\u2019s any chance we can run this in the Chase, I hope we can do it. \u00a0It was an awesome day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Carl<\/a>
Carl Edwards shows his excitement with a backflip after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Edwards\u2019 chances were lowered when he lost two laps early in the race after staying on the track when the rest of the field pitted on lap 62. \u00a0When he did hit pit road on lap 89, he was locked down when a caution came out taking him nearly 200 laps to regain his proper place in the rundown.<\/p>\n

Denny Hamlin came home third, followed by Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick. \u00a0It was a late duel with Keselowski and Harvick during a 43-lap green-flag run preceding the final caution that gave Edwards a lasting Darlington memory.<\/p>\n

“A win like this is really special, especially leading into the Chase,” Edwards said. \u00a0“This is what we needed. \u00a0We just needed a shot in the arm and needed to have a good night like this. \u00a0All over, it’s cool.<\/p>\n

“I hope I never forget those last 25 laps. \u00a0That was really fun, and the restart was fun, but truly racing with Brad and Kevin was a blast. \u00a0I really had a good time.”<\/p>\n

\"Aric<\/a>
Aric Almirola, driver of the #43 STP Ford, races Paul Menard, driver of the #27 Chevrolet, during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With his seventh place finish at Darlington, Kyle Busch locked in his rightful place in the Chase being in the top 30 in driver in points after returning from his Daytona injuries.<\/p>\n

Other drivers with NASCAR \u2018Chase Bubble Troubles\u2019 are Aric Almirola, Kasey Kahne, Greg Biffle, and Kyle Larson in the 17 \u2013 20 spots, while Jamie McMurry, Ryan Newman, Jeff Gordon, Paul Menard and Clint Bowyer hold down the 12 \u2013 16 with Richmond setting the Chase field.<\/p>\n

It turned out to be NASCAR\u2019s longest race so far of the 2015 season, taking 4 hours, 28 minutes, 35 seconds to complete the 500 miles.\u00a0 It had a Southern 500 record number of caution flags at 18 for 89 laps slowing the pace to just 111.993 mph. \u00a0There were 24 lead changes among 11 drivers.<\/p>\n

NASCAR\u2019s Sprint Cup regular season concludes next weekend at the Richmond International Raceway for the Federated Auto Parts 400 on Saturday night, Sept. 12 at 7 p.m. on NBCSN.<\/p>\n

\"Kyle<\/a>
Kyle Larson, driver of the #42 Mello Yello Chevrolet, races Tony Stewart, driver of the #14 Bass Pro Shops\/Mobil 1 Chevrolet, during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Bojangles’ Southern 500.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carl Edwards took the victory at Darlington after needing 200 laps to come back from a pit stop.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":18055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3424,3470,22],"tags":[3357,3053,3116,2993,3356,1531,3185,3358,1190,3355,1529,1193,1528,683,127,3147,1530],"class_list":["post-18052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","category-news","category-event-coverage","tag-aric-almirola","tag-brad-keselowski","tag-carl-edwards","tag-clint-bowyer","tag-darlington","tag-denny-hamlin","tag-greg-biffle","tag-jamie-mcmurry","tag-jeff-gordon","tag-joe-gibbs-racing","tag-joey-logano","tag-kasey-kahne","tag-kevin-harvick","tag-kyle-larson","tag-nascar","tag-paul-menard","tag-ryan-newman"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/15NASCARDarlingtonSprintCupCarlEdwardsWinnersCircle.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-4Ha","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18052"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18074,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18052\/revisions\/18074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}