Edwards dominates Great Clips 300

It was a hot and humid night at Hampton, Georgia Saturday night as the NASCAR Nationwide Series stars invaded The Atlanta Motor Speedway for the Great Clips 300. Continuing his hot streak, Carl Edwards claimed his sixth Nationwide Series win in the 2011 season and the tenth win for the 2011 Ford Mustang.

[media-credit name=”Joe Dunn” align=”alignright” width=”263″][/media-credit]Leading 101 of 195 laps, the closest competitor to Edwards was, to no one’s surprise Kyle Busch who led only 31 laps but managed to finish second., followed by Edward’s teammate Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in third. Kevin Harvick finished fourth followed by Kasey Kahne. Justin Allgaier was sixth, with Brad Keselowski, Aric Almirola, Jason Leffler and Elliott Sadler rounding out the top ten.

As usual, half of the top ten finishers were Cup drivers and not eligible for the Series points. However, the points leader, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was the top Series finisher and maintained the points lead, extending his lead over Sadler by 8 points. Two regulars, Reed Sorenson and Trevor Bayne ran consistently up front until a lap 170 incident in turn two, that also involved Sorenson’s teammate Justin Allgaier ended both of their nights. Both driver’s expressed frustration with the incident.

This was also a good night of racing for some of the struggling teams and driver’s in the series. Matt Carter, son of former Cup team owner Travis Carter, landed a one time ride that was scheduled to run the entire race, as opposed to the ‘start & park’ rides that he has settled for all season. The folks from Bennett Buildings and Carports USA gave Carter a chance in the #39 Ford. Carter showed a lot of promise as he kept the car intact and clean, finishing a respectable 17th two laps down, with all the fenders where they belonged.

The series senior driver, Morgan Shepherd brought his #89 car home with a top 25 finish, and Jennifer Jo Cobb, another owner diver with very limited funding, again was on the track for the checkered flag, with a top 30 finish. It should be noted that Cobb also had a top 25 run the previous night in her NASCAR Camping World Truck Series entry.