Carl Edwards took his first celebratory back flip of the season and easily stuck the landing. "I considered not doing it," he said. "I haven't done one for a while." He earned that acrobatic moment because his No. 19 Toyota gripped Bristol Motor Speedway much better than his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Sunday. Edwards avoided tire issues that plagued his teammates and took off on the final restart to win the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series on the half-mile bullring. In fact, he made it look easy. Starting on the pole for the second straight week, Edwards' Camry led eight times for 276 of 500 laps en route to his first victory since September at Darlington and fourth at Bristol. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was second, followed by Kurt Busch, Chase Elliott and Trevor Bayne. "We didn't have any trouble, and that's just a testament to everyone at the shop and whole team," said Edwards, who now trails new points leader Kevin Harvick (seventh) by a point. "It's really awesome to have a win so we can really have fun and focus on the championship." Edwards' flawless day contrasted the right-front tire problems endured by teammates Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth and Denny Hamlin after all of them started in the top five. Busch, the defending series champion and points leader coming in, had trouble throughout the race. He finally exited after his car smacked the wall on Lap 259 and sustained heavy damage, failing to finish a race for the first time since June at Michigan. Kenseth led three times for 142 laps and seemed to be one of the few drivers capable of challenging Edwards before his day ended early after he cut a right front tire a second time and hit the wall. Hamlin had problems too, enough to cause Goodyear to announce it would examine all of those tires from Busch and Kenseth to determine if the failures were due to the tire makeup or the aggressive setups drivers use at the high-banked track. Earnhardt meanwhile had to overcome a dead battery that stalled his No. 88 Chevy at the start and initially left him two laps down. He battled back to get on the lead lap by Lap 200 and eventually dueled Kurt Busch hard late with inside-outside moves by both to create some drama. None of it ultimately mattered with Edwards out front. Edwards stayed above the fray and was strong on long and short runs. That was evident on two restarts in the final 10 laps, when he jumped out and wasn't challenged in earning his 26th career win. — AP
