| MICHIGAN
INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
Sunday,
June 17, 2007 on TNT
Edwards
Wins Citizens Bank 400
Source:
Michigan International Speedway
PHOTO
COURTESY OF MISPEEDWAY.COM
BROOKLYN,
Mich. -- When you come to play in Jack Roush's
backyard you better bring all your best toys because the
longtime owner put another car in Gatorade Victory Lane
at Michigan International Speedway on Sunday in the Citizens
Bank 400.
Remember that
Roush is from nearby Livonia, Mich. and has now won a
total of 15 NASCAR races at MIS, including nine NEXTEL
Cup races and three races each in the NASCAR Craftsman
Truck Series and Busch Series.
Increase those
totals by one following Carl Edwards’ victory on
Sunday, marking his first triumph in 52 races and only
the second Ford triumph this season in NEXTEL Cup competition.
That gave Roush a sweep of the three races at MIS this
weekend. His driver Travis Kvapil won the NASCAR Craftsman
Truck Series race at MIS on Saturday and Erik Darnell,
another Roush driver, captured the ARCA RE/MAX Series
Michigan 200 on Friday. Ford’s only other win this
season was by Matt Kenseth at California Speedway. Chevrolet
has dominated the series in all other events in 2007.
Kenseth, who
had completed every lap this season, didn’t complete
very many at MIS. He was involved in a wreck just 78 laps
into the 200-lap, 400-mile race and finished 42nd. That’s
about where Tony Stewart started. He was involved in a
wreck with David Gilliland during Happy Hour on Saturday.
Stewart’s team had to make repairs to his car and
it was forced to start 41st in the 43-car field. Everything
considered, Stewart was happy with a third-place finish.
It established the record for the greatest improvement
from a starting position. The previous record was held
by Jimmy Spencer in the June 1996 race at 36 places (40th
to 4th).
"It’s
nice to win and get those extra 10 points toward the Chase,"
Stewart said. “The most important thing now is to
be consistent more than winning a race here and there.
The while we dug ourselves into Friday and the 38 car
helped us with yesterday that put us two strikes down
and starting the race today from the back. You can look
at it and say we didn’t win today, or you can say
we crossed the start-finish 43rd when we took the green
and passed 40 cars to wind up with a top three finish.
I choose to look at the positive say and say we rebounded
we overcame a lot of adversity this weekend to finish
third.”
Edwards took
the lead for good on lap 166 and held off a fast-closing
Martin Truex, Jr., toward the end. Truex had gotten to
within 1 1⁄2 seconds of Edwards with 15 laps remaining
after being behind by over eight seconds, but then started
to back off, eventually losing by 3.7 seconds.
“If I
would have lost that race it would have been like losing
one of my arms,” Edwards said. “I have to
hand it to Martin Truex. He’s brave to be running
so high. He taught me something here today.”
For Truex it was his third top-three finish in the last
three races.
“I had
a really good race car,” he said. “I hit the
wall when I got to about within about 10 car-lengths of
him and then hit the wall. I actually ran into the wall
and pushed my right front tire in a little bit. It got
even worse. From there it was just try to save gas and
make it to the end. We were definitely faster than him
for a while. We were both running the same line, right
up against the wall. Once I got about eight or 10 cars
from him I got really tight and that was kind of unfortunate,
but it was a great day for us. Carl hadn’t had won
in quite a while so I’m sure he’s real happy.”
The NASCAR
NEXTEL Cup Series will return to MIS on August 19 for
the 3M Performance 400. The race will be accompanied by
the NASCAR Busch Series CARFAX 250 on August 18, along
with the annual 3M Car Care Auto Fair, which will be held
in the AAA Motorsports Fan Plaza during the weekend.
Return
to our Citizens
Bank 400 Index.
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