Carl Edwards wins Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway – NASCAR news
Carl Edwards won the Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday.
Edwards finished runner-up at Daytona 500 and last week at Phoenix, he crashed into the fence after contacting with Kyle Busch. He had the winning car in his opinion if he did not have to sit in garage for 60 laps which took his team to repair the
wreck.
Tony Stewart had to face a penalty when he left his pit stop with an air wrench under a caution on lap 155 and had a restart at lap 157 in 24th place in his No. 14 Chevrolet ending as a runner-up.
“I don't know what happened on the pit stop there, but we had a miscue and had a penalty and had to go to the back, and unfortunately it kind of dealt our cards for us,” said Stewart, who led 163 of 267 laps. “[Crew chief] Darian [Grubb] made a good
call getting us the track position back, but it also showed everybody else that they could do it, too, and we couldn't run two-and-a-half runs on a set of left-side tires.”
Carl Edwards in No. 99 Ford finished 1.246 seconds ahead of Tony Stewart. Edwards’ crew chief Bob Osborne had a keen eye on Stewart’s running strategy.
“That car was spectacular. He did a really good job driving it, too,” Edwards said of Stewart. “That was really a gift for us for him to have that penalty. It may have been the difference in the race there.”
After the Phoenix event, Edwards was dropped at 12th place in the point standings. Edwards took the lead from Stewart during the changed pit-stop strategy. Stewart, who chose to make a two-tyre change in his last pit-stop, forced him to
come in early for a four-tire change in his last stop.
On the other hand, Edwards had the convenience of having a four-tyre change in his final stop. This gave him the rite gap to snatch the lead from the fast Stewart. Juan Montoya finished third in the race.
“This means a lot, coming off Phoenix,” said Edwards, who led the final 23 laps. “After last weekend, I had no clue -- I just didn't know how things were going to go from there. You don't get a good race car like that very often, but I had another
one [Sunday].”
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