Carl Edwards put on a dominating performance, but had to hold off Kyle Busch in the closing laps to win Saturday’s Nashville 300 Nationwide Series race at Nashville Superspeedway.
Edwards led 148 of 225 laps en route to his fourth Nationwide win at Nashville. He won three in a row at this 1.333-mile, concrete-surface track from 2006-07.
Busch led a total of 39 laps, but after a late-race restart, Edwards chased Busch down and ran side-by-side with him for several laps before making the winning pass with 35 to go. MiamiHerald.com
Edwards said the finish was more of a struggle than it appeared.
“Early in the race, our car was really superior,” he said. “I could kind of stretch out a lead whenever I wanted to, but at the end of the race, I was really pedaling for all I had. The guys in the 18 (Busch) ... did a good job of adjusting their car.
“It was kind of exciting at the beginning of the race. I thought we were going to run off with this thing, it’s going to be easy, but (at the end) that was white-knuckling, driving as hard as I could drive, racing him and Brad (Keselowski).”
Keselowski, a two-time winner in Nashville, finished third, edging polesitter Joey Logano in fourth, and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in fifth. The Associated Press
FIN CAR DRIVER MAKE 1 60 Carl Edwards Ford 2 18 Kyle Busch Toyota 3 22 Brad Keselowski Dodge 4 20 Joey Logano Toyota 5 6 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Ford 6 16 Trevor Bayne Ford 7 33 Austin Dillon Chevrolet 8 32 Reed Sorenson Chevrolet 9 7 Josh Wise Chevrolet 10 88 Aric Almirola Chevrolet 11 31 Justin Allgaier Chevrolet 12 9 Kenny Wallace Toyota 13 2 Elliott Sadler Chevrolet 14 164 David Reutimann Toyota 15 38 Jason Leffler Chevrolet 16 99 Ryan Truex * Toyota 17 66 Steve Wallace Toyota 18 1 Mike Wallace Chevrolet 19 62 Michael Annett Toyota 20 70 David Stremme Chevrolet 21 40 Scott Wimmer Chevrolet 22 11 Brian Scott Toyota 23 51 Jeremy Clements Chevrolet 24 87 Kevin Conway Toyota 25 81 Blake Koch * Dodge 26 39 Danny O'Quinn Jr. Chevrolet 27 167 J.R. Fitzpatrick Ford 28 89 Morgan Shepherd Chevrolet 29 30 Mikey Kile Chevrolet 30 28 Derrike Cope Dodge 31 19 Mike Bliss Chevrolet 32 14 Eric McClure Chevrolet 33 15 Timmy Hill * Ford 34 23 Robert Richardson Jr. Dodge 35 52 Tim Schendel Chevrolet 36 79 Tim Andrews Ford 37 49 Dennis Setzer Chevrolet 38 174 Mike Harmon Chevrolet 39 168 Matthew Carter Chevrolet 40 141 Carl Long Ford 41 5 Willie Allen Chevrolet 42 44 Jeff Green Chevrolet 43 175 Johnny Chapman Ford
| 
|