Strategies in Wine Country

This race weekend started out good for Carl Edwards even before the cars hit the track.  Several weeks ago, in the All-star race, Carl's highest finish for a Toyota earned him the right to grace the cover of a soon-to-be-released video game.  At the Sonoma track, they unveiled the final artwork.  If you have not already seen Carl's visage on the video game case, here it is:

But they did not go all the way to California to unveil a video game cover.  There was a race to prepare for, after all.  Carl led the majority of the first practice, finishing the session in 5th place.  Similarly, he finished the second and final practice session in 4th place.  Apparently they came ready to go fast!

Qualifying went even better.  The #19 Stanley Camry posted the fastest time in the first round of qualifying, easily advancing to the second and final round.  And in the second round, POLE!!!!!  This was Carl's third pole this season, the most poles earned by any driver this year.

Once Sunday rolled around and the race got underway, Carl started alongside of AJ Allmendinger.  In spite of the Dinger's strong road racing skills, Carl managed to hold him off and maintain the lead for the first nine laps.  The two of them made their green flag pit stop on the same lap, and Carl's top notch pit crew got them out first.  Once everything cycled back around after everybody completed their green flag pit stops on lap 32, Carl was back in the lead.

You could tell that Carl had a strong car underneath him.  The set up was allowing him to drive the car out of the corners better than anybody else.  Even Darrell Waltrip said that Carl was "driving as strong as steel and as smooth as silk."

At the first caution on lap 47, he once again won the race off pit road.  However, several cars stayed out because they had pitted under green just before the caution.  He restarted in 7th.  And that was the beginning of the various strategies that would change the race.

Before the next caution on lap 88, he moved up one stop to 6th.  On pit road, he moved up another two spots to 4th.  With one car not pitting, he restarted 5th.  And when other cars could not getting going, he fell back to 6th.

On lap 97, Carl's Toyota ended up as the meat in a three-way sandwich, never a good thing on a road course.  He made contact with Junior on his inside, but it did not appear to affect the handling of his car.  Before the end of the race, he had climbed back up to 4th, notching yet another top five finish.  Had it not been for the various strategies in place, he might have well contended for the win, as his car was consistently one of the fastest on the track.

His high finishing position nudged him up a bit in the standings.  On the Chase grid, he moved up from 3rd to 2nd.  Only Kyle, with three wins to Carl's two, is ahead of him.  In the drivers' standings, he moved up from 4th to 3rd.