KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Carl Edwards headed to Kansas Speedway looking for win number one at his home track. The No. 99 Aflac Ford Fusion started from the fourth spot and remained solidly inside the top-five for the beginning of the race, opting to stay out with the leaders while most of the field came down pit road under cautions. This strategy ultimately resulted in the Roush Fenway Racing driver ending up a lap down, but crew chief Jimmy Fennig made some key calls late in the day to gain positions on pit road and put Edwards in the sixth-spot when the checkered flag waved.
“That wasn’t what we were looking for,” Edwards said. “We needed one more restart. I found a little of the line up top. Jimmy did a great job with our Aflac Fusion. He made some big adjustments and our strategy didn’t work the first half. The second half it was good though. I wanted a better showing for these guys here. So many people come support me at this race but congrats to Jeff (Gordon), he has run well enough and deserves that win. We will go to the next track, but man do I want to win this thing.”
The NASCAR Sprint Cup circuit celebrated Mother’s Day with a Saturday night race under the lights. Greg Biffle qualified his No. 16 3M Novec Ford 10th but battled grip and track position throughout the race, ultimately crossing the finish line 16th.
After leading a career-high 26 laps last spring at Kansas Speedway, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. battled an ill-handling Zest Ford for a majority of Saturday night’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race, forcing the two-time champion to settle for a 22nd- place finish.
“Not the result we wanted,” Stenhouse said. “After running so strong at Kansas last spring, we had high hopes coming into this weekend. We’ve struggled with our 1.5-mile program this year but we will keep testing and working on improving our cars.”
After advancing into the second round of knock out qualifying, the two-time Nationwide champion qualified in the 20th place after he was forced to make two runs in the first round causing him to come up a tad short in the second round.
