Bubba Burger No Treat for Edwards in Richmond

The Bubba Burger 250 race at Richmond International Raceway was no treat for Carl Edwards and the #60 Fastenal team on Friday night.  Only 41 cars entered the race, and hopes were high for the Roush-Fenway Racing group with Ricky Stenhouse Jr starting 9th and Carl Edwards starting on the pole.  Edwards led the first 43 laps before ceding the lead to Denny Hamlin driving the JGR #20 car.  By lap 40, Edwards was still hanging on to 4th place, behind Hamlin, Kenny Wallace and Brian Scott.  After that point, Edwards reported the car was too tight, and he began to drop back steadily until going a lap down at about lap 100.  Pit stops under the green flag concluded at lap 109, and the #60 was running in 19th place, 1 lap down, while Hamlin continued to lead and lap cars.

Edwards’ struggles continued throughout the rest of the race.  Crew Chief Mike Beam commented that they had selected the wrong front end set up for this race, and had little to no chance to make corrections as this race had only 2 cautions.  This is unheard of at short tracks.  More trouble followed at lap 125 when the 60 ran out of fuel and had to pit.  The car stalled, and while trying to push the car to restart it, Nascar penalized the team for “pitting outside the box.”  Edwards served a drive-through penalty, dropping back to 25th place where he finished the race. We cannot confirm this, but there is a report that Nascar admitted this call was an error.

Denny Hamlin was victorious, followed by Paul Menard, Justin Allgaier, Elliot Sadler and Brad Keselowski.  Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who also ran short on fuel, finished 24th.  Trevor Bayne missed this race as he remains in the hospital.

Unofficially, Allgaier takes over the points lead, and Stenhouse Jr. drops to 5th, 17 points back.

After the race Edwards said “We had the fastest race car on the race track. We were too tight the first run after a long run and then we fought back really hard and I was really proud of everybody.” said Edwards. “We got in the lucky dog position and then we ran out of gas. We messed that up, but that is racing. We didn’t give up and we didn’t quit. We had a race car that could have won if circumstances would have been a little different and that is the hard part.”

The team travels to Darlington SC for the Royal Purple 200 on Friday May 6th at 7:30 pm.  The race will be aired on ESPN2.