Carl Edwards wins Nationwide race
That left little competition for Carl Edwards as he claimed his fifth win of the season and cut 80 points off of Clint Bowyer's lead in the championship standings. He now trails by 116 with three races remaining.
Neither Edwards nor Bowyer had turned a single lap at Memphis prior to the start of the 250-lap race, having flown in from NASCAR Sprint Cup Series competition in Atlanta.
The difference between the two was the handling on their machines. Bowyer struggled with a tight condition all race long while Edwards owed thanks to Bobby East for a spot-on setup in his No. 60 Ford. East practiced and qualified in place of Edwards.
Bowyer got into the rear of Marcos Ambrose to bring out the second caution flag of the afternoon. That caution changed the face of the race. Edwards was one of few lead lap cars to pit under the yellow, on Lap 29.
The race had an extended green flag run with Edwards clicking off positions with his fresher tires. On Lap 69, he took the lead in Turn 3.
Just over 30 laps later, the field took part in a green flag round of pit stops. After stops cycled through, Edwards had a 10-second lead over Joey Logano.
As Edwards set sail, Bowyer's troubles continued. On Lap 124, the sour handling on the No. 2 Chevrolet lingered and Bowyer lost control of his machine, spinning in Turn 2.
The time of the caution, just after the cycle of green flag pit stops, left only five cars on the lead lap and not much competition for Edwards. That was, until the closing laps and one last restart.
Last year's race winner, David Reutimann regained his lost lap under a caution flag on Lap 213. He challenged Edwards after a green-white-checkered restart on Lap 251. For the final two laps, Reutimann stayed locked onto Edwards's bumper but was unable to make the move.
Reutimann finished second while Kenny Wallace was third. Austin Dillon, in only his second NASCAR Nationwide race, was fourth, and Logano was fifth.
Bobby Hamilton, Jr. spun in Turn 4 coming to the checkered flag. Hamilton blamed Landon Cassill for the incident and after climbing from his car on pit road, approached Cassil's machine, leaned into the driver's side window and appeared to throw a punch at the young driver.
"I couldn't tell what he said," said Cassill, who finished 13th. "He had his shield down. He was nodding and shaking and nodding and shaking. What happened on the last lap, was just short track beating and banging… It was just hard racing."
Results
|
FIN |
ST | CAR | DRIVER | MAKE | SPONSOR | PTS/BNS | LAPS | STATUS |
| 1 | 34 | 60 | Carl Edwards | Ford | CitiFinancial | 195/10 | 253 | Running |
| 2 | 3 | 99 | David Reutimann | Toyota | Aaron's Dream Machine | 170/0 | 253 | Running |
| 3 | 10 | 28 | Kenny Wallace | Chevrolet | U.S. Border Patrol | 165/0 | 253 | Running |
| 4 | 18 | 21 | Austin Dillon | Chevrolet | Hardee's / Childress Institute for Pediatric Trauma | 160/0 | 253 | Running |
| 5 | 21 | 9 | Chase Miller * | Dodge | Motorola / Verizon Wireless | 155/0 | 253 | Running |
| 6 | 24 | 20 | Joey Logano | Toyota | GameStop | 150/0 | 253 | Running |
| 7 | 5 | 1 | Mike Bliss | Chevrolet | Miccosukee Resort & Gaming | 151/5 | 251 | Running |
| 8 | 17 | 6 | David Ragan | Ford | Discount Tire | 142/0 | 250 | Running |
| 9 | 6 | 66 | Steve Wallace | Chevrolet | 5-Hour Energy | 138/0 | 250 | Running |
| 10 | 2 | 64 | David Stremme | Chevrolet | Penske Truck Rental | 134/0 | 250 | Running |
| 11 | 7 | 33 | Cale Gale * | Chevrolet | The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation | 130/0 | 250 | Running |
| 12 | 9 | 38 | Jason Leffler | Toyota | Great Clips | 127/0 | 250 | Running |
| 13 | 8 | 5 | Landon Cassill * | Chevrolet | Nat'l Guard / 39th Infantry Brigade Combat Team | 124/0 | 250 | Running |
| 14 | 11 | 7 | Mike Wallace | Toyota | GEICO | 121/0 | 250 | Running |
| 15 | 15 | 59 | Marcos Ambrose | Ford | Kingsford Tailgate at Home | 118/0 | 250 | Running |
| 16 | 32 | 2 | Clint Bowyer | Chevrolet | BB&T | 115/0 | 249 | Running |
| 17 | 12 | 88 | Brad Keselowski | Chevrolet | U.S. Navy | 112/0 | 249 | Running |
| 18 | 25 | 25 | Bobby Hamilton Jr. | Ford | Eckrich | 109/0 | 249 | Running |
| 19 | 26 | 47 | Kelly Bires | Ford | STP / AutoZone | 106/0 | 249 | Running |
| 20 | 1 | 32 | James Buescher | Toyota | Camping World/ RVs.com | 108/5 | 249 | Running |
| 21 | 37 | 81 | D.J. Kennington | Dodge | Joe Michael / St. Jude Children's Research Hospital | 100/0 | 249 | Running |
| 22 | 19 | 29 | Scott Wimmer | Chevrolet | Holiday Inn / Holiday Inn Express | 97/0 | 248 | Running |
| 23 | 4 | 18 | Marc Davis | Toyota | DLP HDTV | 94/0 | 248 | Running |
| 24 | 28 | 111 | Scott Lagasse Jr. | Chevrolet | America's Incredible Pizza Company | 91/0 | 248 | Running |
| 25 | 14 | 27 | Jason Keller | Ford | Cottonelle | 88/0 | 248 | Running |
| 26 | 39 | 4 | Derrike Cope | Chevrolet | JVC | 85/0 | 248 | Running |
| 27 | 38 | 24 | Eric McClure | Chevrolet | Hefty Odorblock | 82/0 | 247 | Running |
| 28 | 30 | 161 | Brandon Whitt | Ford | Specialty Racing | 79/0 | 247 | Running |
| 29 | 16 | 171 | Ron Young | Chevrolet | Young Racing | 76/0 | 245 | Running |
| 30 | 13 | 170 | Mark Green | Chevrolet | Foretravel Motorcoach | 78/5 | 244 | Running |
| 31 | 35 | 292 | Brian Keselowski * | Dodge | Dusty's Collision | 70/0 | 242 | Running |
| 32 | 42 | 22 | Jarit Johnson | Dodge | Supercuts | 67/0 | 234 | Running |
| 33 | 41 | 01 | Wheeler Boys | Chevrolet | SponsorDavis.com | 64/0 | 193 | In Pit |
| 34 | 43 | 331 | Stanton Barrett | Chevrolet | INTERUSH.net | 61/0 | 155 | In Pit |
| 35 | 22 | 40 | Kevin Hamlin | Dodge | Fastenal / St. Jude Children's Research Hospital | 58/0 | 150 | In Pit |
| 36 | 40 | 52 | Brad Teague | Ford | Hilton Garden Inn / Appling Boring Co. | 55/0 | 141 | Out of Race |
| 37 | 27 | 89 | Morgan Shepherd | Dodge | Racing With Jesus / Lagina Plumbing | 52/0 | 59 | Out of Race |
| 38 | 20 | 05 | Burney Lamar | Ford | 31-W Insulation / CertainTeed | 49/0 | 49 | In Pit |
| 39 | 36 | 149 | Kertus Davis | Chevrolet | In Memory of Kenneth Campbell | 46/0 | 24 | In Pit |
| 40 | 33 | 91 | Justin Hobgood | Chevrolet | MSRP Motorsports | 43/0 | 10 | In Pit |
| 41 | 23 | 178 | Johnny Sauter | Dodge | Vangle.com | 40/0 | 9 | In Pit |
| 42 | 29 | 12 | Justin Allgaier | Dodge | Penske Truck Rental | 37/0 | 9 | In Pit |
| 43 | 31 | 173 | Kevin Lepage | Dodge | Germane Red | 34/0 | 2 | In Pit |