Carl Edwards Wins $1 Million Sprint All-Star Race

Carl Edwards won the Sprint Cup All-Star Race on Saturday, taking the $1 million prize. That race might not have been as exciting as fans were hoping for, especially after NASCAR had tried to sell this as a hard-nosed race that was going to come down to the final lap.

According to ESPN, the most drama came after the race as Edwards was celebrating his victory. While taking his car through a celebratory slide over the grass infield, he dipped the front end after hitting something and mashed in the entire front of the car. At that point the car was dead on the track and had to be towed to Victory Lane. Not quite the picturesque ending to a race any driver wants to have, but at least Edwards ended up with a nice cash prize.

Edwards won after leading 29 laps. He won three of the four segments the race is split into, including the all-important fourth (and final) leg. Kyle Busch ended up finishing second, which was a disappointing result for someone who had held the pole coming into the race. He led 19 laps but neither of the top two drivers came close to matching the lap leader.

Greg Biffle had his Ford working well, and he led 46 of the 100 laps. He seemed like that No. 16 car was really going to push hard at the end of the race, but Biffle slipped to fifth place at the end. Finishing third was David Reutimann and Tony Stewart was fourth.

Maybe it would have been easy to predict that Edwards was going to win as he is the current points leader. He is 24 points ahead of Jimmie Johnson and 37 ahead of Busch after the first portion of the season. The All-Star Race doesn't play into the overall standings as there are no points assigned for placing (or winning) this event.

Things get back to normal on May 29 when Charlotte Motor Speedway hosts an official event. The drivers should be very familiar with the track by now, and the top 10 drivers from Saturday's race should be expected to do quite well. This time it will be for points though, so expect Johnson and his pit team to try harder to make a run at Edwards.

Reference:

Full_All-Star_Results