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Edwards claims Busch battle allowed Harvick’s escape to victory

Carl Edwards again failed to register a victory at his home circuit at Kansas Speedway, and believes the tough battle with his Joe Gibbs Toyota teammate Kyle Busch aided Kevin Harvick’s victory.

Carl Edwards, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota

Carl Edwards, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota

NASCAR Media

Carl Edwards, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
Carl Edwards, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
Kevin Harvick, Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet takes the win
Race winner Kevin Harvick, Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet
Race winner Kevin Harvick, Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet
Kyle Busch, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota
Matt Kenseth, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, Kyle Busch, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota during pace laps

Edwards came up 1.1s short of Harvick at the finish of Sunday's Hollywood Casino 400 Sprint Cup race, but he lost any real hope of contesting the victory when he became embroiled in a fierce battle with Busch following the final restart.

“It was a pretty hard battle, and that left Kevin get out ahead,” said Edwards. “At the end of the day you’re racing for every position here. I felt we raced as hard as… I mean, it was reasonable but it was pretty hard.”

Busch initially evaded the question about his hard duelling with Edwards, and said: “I really hate it that we weren’t able to go up there and race the 4 and get more out of it, but we just kinda had to fade gracefully there towards the end, we didn’t have enough to chase those guys down. I wish we did.”

When pressed on the Edwards battle, he simply replied: “It’s racing I guess.” 

Edwards: Defeat was “painful”

Having missed out on victory, Edwards will now have to manage his comfortable points advantage at Talladega next weekend to progress to the next round of the play-off.

“The real hard part for me was that we didn’t win this race,” he added. “I know we got a points cushion going into Talladega and everything, but it is hard to lose a race here.

“As painful as this loss is, we ran well today. And that’s what it’s going to take to win at Homestead – we feel like we can get to that final round and be a force to be reckoned with.

“Man I wanted to win this today. I felt we had the race under control if it had kept going green. We really had something fast there.

“Then on that [final] restart, Jimmie got behind Kevin and pushed him just far enough out there so that I couldn’t hang and slow Kevin down into Turn 1, he just broke the draft there. And then I got into the battle with Kyle.”

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