Edwards wins NNS race at Texas; Keselowski captures the NNS Championship

Fort Worth, Texas – Carl Edwards, driver of the No. 60 of theCopart.com Ford holds off Kyle Busch and wins the O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday.

Edwards jumped to the lead with forty-five laps to go.  Edwards and Busch would battle for the lead on the restart after the caution on lap 148, but after that, nobody had anything for Edwards.

Brad Keselowski driver of the No.22 Discount Tire Dodge would capture the NNS Championship and the first for Roger Penske.

“What a terrific season it has been for Brad and the No. 22 Discount Tire/Ruby Tuesday Dodge team in the Nationwide Series. Penske Racing is very excited to share our organization’s first NASCAR championship with our partners at Dodge. We want to thank Ralph Gilles and his team at Dodge Motorsports for their hard work and dedication and we look forward to many more celebrations in Victory Circle with both the Chargers and the Challengers in the future.” Roger Penske said.

Busch would take the lead from pole-setter James Buescher at lap five and led thirty-nine laps before the first ServiceMaster Clean caution was thrown at lap forty-four due to a blown tire by Buescher in turn four.

Before the first caution was thrown there was not too much action on the track. Busch slid under Kevin Harvick at lap three to take over the second spot. Then at lap five Busch got the run on Buescher coming off turn four to take the lead.

We saw the first contact of the race at lap eleven, between the 05 driven by David Starr and the 7 of Danica Patrick on the backstretch, but no caution was thrown. Both Starr and Patrick came to the pits at lap thirteen to fix their cars from the mishap a couple of laps earlier.

We finally saw our first ServiceMaster Clean caution at lap fourty-four when James Buescher driver of the No. 30 Wolfpack Energy Chevrolet slapped the wall in turn four after blowing a tire. This would bring the leaders down pit road, Kyle Busch overshot his pit stall, but was able to quickly back up and complete his stop. The only other action on pit road was the No. 21 of Clint Bowyer, had trouble re-firing his car and stalled exiting his pits, resulting in the loss of several spots.

The green flag would drop with Carl Edwards getting his first lead of the race. Edwards would lead twelve laps, before fellow Roush Fenway driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr. driver of the No. 7 CITI Financial Ford would take the lead and lead the next twenty-seven laps until the next caution came out at lap eighty-one, due car troubles from the 05 of David Starr.

The green flag would drop again at lap eighty-six where Kyle Busch would lead for the second time of the day.  Busch, would lead for the next fifty-seven laps and that gets us through the half-way point at lap one hundred.  At the half-way point we saw two cautions, four lead changes and four different leaders.  The drivers would complete their scheduled green flag pit stops with Kyle Busch coming back on top.

Our third ServiceMaster Clean caution came at lap 148, with debris in turn four. There may be some damage to the right front valence on third-place Brad Keselowski’s car. The green flag would again drop at lap 152 with Kyle Busch still on top, Edwards would rocket past Kyle Busch for the lead going into turn one and there was no looking back after that for Edwards.

We would see our fourth caution, at lap 186 when the No.42 driven by Parker Kligerman spun off turn two.  The green flag would drop at lap 190 with Trevor Bayne leading briefly, before he is swallowed up Busch going to the inside of Edwards making it three-wide going into turn one. Brian Scott driver of 09 Shore Line Dodge would slap the wall on lap 195, but not in Busch’s favor a caution was not thrown.

However, Busch would catch his break on lap 197 when Clint Bowyer would bring out the fifth caution. And we would see the third Green-White-Checkerd in Texas Motor Speedway NNS races.  

Edwards, would get a huge jump on the start and easily would take the lead, Busch and Keselowski would try, but Edwards would have the best car and score his third NNS victory of the season.

“The restart there, Carl jumped the restart.  NASCAR never wants to be the outcome of the race, but yet every other week they are.  It doesn’t surprise me that they aren’t this week.” Busch said.

There were a total of five ServiceMaster Clean cautions for a total of twenty-four laps. This would Busch’s posted his eleventh top-10 finish in twelve races at TMS. It is his twenty-fourth of the 2010 season. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was the highest finishing rookie with an eleventh place finish.

The top-ten finishers of the O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge are: No. 60 Carl Edwards, No. 18 Kyle Busch, No. 22 Brad Keselowski, No. 20 Joey Logano, No. 99 Martin Truex Jr.,No. 38 Jason Lefler, No.32 Reed Sorenson, No.33 Kevin Harvick, No.98 of Paul Menard, and finally the No.66 Steve Wallace

Unofficial Race Results

O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge, Texas Motor Speedway

November 6, 2010 – Race 33 of 35