WEST ALLIS, Wis. - Carl Edwards scored his first NASCAR Nationwide Series victory in more than a year when he took the checkered flag in Saturday night's Camping World RV Center 250 at The Milwaukee Mile.
Edwards used a bump around Clint Bowyer with 25 laps to go to take the top spot in Saturday night's race before a jammed Milwaukee Mile crowd.
He then outran Joey Logano to score his first win since taking the checkered flag at Nashville Superspeedway last June.
"I didn’t want to pass Clint that way,” Edwards said. “I got underneath him and hit him.”
The incident as well as the day's passing of drag racer Scott Kalitta earlier curtailed Edwards' usual post-victory backflip celebration.
"Today, what happened to Mr. Kalitta, and the way I passed Clint, I just didn’t feel like doing a backflip,” Edwards said.
Bowyer wasn't pleased with what happened and his post-race comments indicated a possible payback was in the cards down the line.
But Edwards brushed it off and isn't worried about tomorrow's Sprint Cup race at Infineon Raceway as a place for a possible return from Bowyer.
“As long as Clint’s not too mad and we don’t have to race around him, we’ll be all right,” Edwards said.
Logano's runner-up performance came one week after his first career series win last Saturday night in Kentucky.
"It took me five to 10 laps for it to come in," Logano said of his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. "I just lost positions on restarts, and you can’t afford to do that. It’s hard to come back from that. We were just too tight at the end to catch Carl. I don’t think we adjusted to the race track enough. I think the track got a lot tighter. Overall, from where we started today to where we ended was a big plus.”
Bowyer held on to finish third followed by David Ragan and David Reutimann with that trio joining Edwards on flights back to Sonoma, California after the race to compete in Sunday's Sprint Cup Series race at Infineon Raceway.
"We got up to where we needed to be, and unfortunately it got taken from us,” Bowyer said.
Scott Wimmer, Mike Bliss, Brad Keselowski, Jason Keller and Jason Leffler completed the first ten finishers.
Keselowski had dominated the first half of the race after starting from the pole. But Logano made contact with him going for the lead with 79 laps to go and the No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet dropped back after the incident.
The Nationwide Series now heads to New Hampshire Motor Speedway next Saturday afternoon.
