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Carl Edwards celebrates the first road course win of his career (Photo from NASCAR Media).
The Nationwide Series saw a little bit of everything on NAPA Auto Parts 200 weekend at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal -- practice and qualifying in the rain on Saturday and racing in both wet and dry conditions on Sunday afternoon.
Sunday’s race begin on a dry track, the first time the competitors had been on the track during dry conditions all weekend, and ended in the rain. Sprint Cup Series veteran and road course ace Marcos Ambrose seemed to have a handle on both, leading the most laps and dominating all day in both the dry and rainy weather.
Ambrose’s mastery fell off just one lap short, though, after running a perfect race all afternoon. He slipped up by jumping the curb a little too much on one of the final turns on the final lap, and Carl Edwards was able to take advantage and get by Ambrose to claim the win.
“I just made one mistake, and it cost me the race,” a frustrated Ambrose said.
After taking the checkered flag for the first road course win of his career in any series, Edwards treated the Canadian fans to a live performance of his infamous backflip.
“We just went international,” he said afterward.
Ambrose did get his car corrected quickly enough to post a second-place finish.
“I feel like he’s the world’s bet road course racer right now,” Edwards said.
Sunday’s race was the third-straight race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in which Ambrose had dominated , leading the most laps, before either making a mistake or being caught up in someone else’s mistake and losing the race in the late going.
Things were much worse for many other competitors. Sunday’s race saw a lot of carnage, as 14 cars were off the track at the end of the event. The track’s previous Nationwide record of five cautions was matched way before the halfway point of the race. By the end of the event, the caution flag would wave 11 times with about a third of the race being completed behind the pace car.
Native Canadians -- and the country was well-represented on the track -- weren’t immune to the problems, either.
Patrick Carpentier blew an engine on lap 17 to end his day early, and fellow-Canadian Ron Fellows’ day ended a few laps later after contact with Justin Allgaier.
A few native sons gave the Canadian fans something to cheer about, though. Andrew Ranger and Jacques Villeneuve each posted top-five finishes -- Ranger third and Villeneuve fouth.
“It was fun,” Villeneuve said of Sunday’s race in his home country.
Nationwide Series regular Brad Keselowski, who has scored more points in Nationwide competition over the last seven races than any other, rounded out the top-five.
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