Carl Edwards sees Chase chances dim with broken hub

Sunday Dover Notebook

Carl Edwards sees Chase chances dim with broken hub

Sept. 29, 2013

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

DOVER, Del.—The wrong guy broke—at least from Carl Edwards' perspective.

Edwards came to Dover fourth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings, hoping to gain ground on the three drivers ahead of him: Matt Kenseth, Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson.

Instead, it was Edwards who left the Monster Mile with his title hopes in tatters, after a broken hub relegated him to a 35th-place finish. Edwards dropped seven spots to 11th in the Chase standings, 65 points behind Kenseth.

"I used to really like Dover--I really looked forward to this place," Edwards said after the race. "This was tough. We needed the other guys to have problems. We didn't need to have problems. Something broke on the left rear. I don't think it was a mistake by any of my guys."

Even before the mechanical problem, Edwards' car wasn't handling the way he would have liked. By Lap 362 of 400, he was already a lap down but hoped to gain ground with contrarian pit strategy.

"We struggled with the car really badly, but I think we had a decent strategy for the end. We were going to try to get off-sequence with everybody," Edwards said. "The things that we had trouble with were things that we weren't going to be able to change throughout the day."

With seven races left before the championship is decided, Edwards has time to make up ground, but his task became exponentially more difficult on Sunday.

"We've got a lot of racing left, and the way we've gotten into the position we've been in the whole year is just by persevering," he said. "We'll go to Kansas (for next Sunday's race), try to win that one and keep moving.

"Now we're in a position like a lot of the guys. We've got to step it up and try to make something happen. That's not impossible, so we'll keep at it."

IF IT WASN'T FOR BAD LUCK...

The post-championship funk continued for Brad Keselowski, who missed the Chase this year after winning the Sprint Cup title last season.

Keselowski had a strong car Sunday at Dover—until a mechanical problem sent him to the garage on Lap 226 with his No. 2 Penske Ford trailing rear-end oil.

"Something in the rear end housing went out and burned itself up," Keselowski said while his crewmen worked on the car. "We leaked oil on the track, so (we) figured we would come in before we ruined everybody else's day."

Eventually, Keselowski returned to the track 45 laps down and finished 37th.

"We're getting all of our bad luck out of the way this year, so watch out next year."

GOOD GAIN FOR GORDON

With a fourth-place run at Dover, Jeff Gordon kept his hopes for a fifth championship alive—even though a late debris caution may have cost him a chance to win Sunday's AAA 400.

Gordon was saving fuel over the final run, hoping to squeeze enough fuel mileage to finish the race without pitting. The final caution, however, put everyone back on equal terms and allowed the lead-lap cars to refuel under yellow.

"The caution came out, and we just did not have a short-run car," said Gordon, who is tied with Kevin Harvick for fourth in the Chase standings, 39 points behind Kenseth. "We took two (tires) to get track position, which won the race (for Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson). But it just didn't work for our car.

Gordon, however, didn't begrudge Johnson his record eighth win at the Monster Mile.

"Congrats to Jimmie," Gordon said. "He's so tough here. It's no surprise that he won. It was a great job by (runner-up Dale Earnhardt) Junior, too. That was fun to watch."