Edwards won his first of a career-high six Coors Light Pole Awards on the season in April at Texas Motor Speedway. He finished seventh at Texas for his sixth top-10 finish in the season's first seven races. He went on to win poles at Bristol (twice), Sonoma, Watkins Glen and New Hampshire to run his career total of pole wins to 22 in 13 seasons.
Edwards went from pole winner to Victory Lane at Bristol, but it wasn't that easy in a race that saw other competitors, including all three of his JGR teammates, encounter troubles that led to their demise. Edwards, meanwhile, led 276 of 500 laps at Thunder Valley to claim his first win of the season and his fourth at the fabled short track. The victory all but assured Edwards a spot in the Chase. And he, of course, celebrated with his signature backflip.
Edwards made it two wins in a row by executing a bump-and-run pass of teammate Kyle Busch on the final lap at Richmond. The finish provided goosebumps for NASCAR fans seeing as though it was the first last-lap pass for a win in the track's history. But the silence was deafening on Busch's radio afterward and the incident would come up a handful of times over the rest of the season -- most notably heading to Miami for the Championship 4.
Crashes at Talladega, Dover and Daytona contributed to a string of subpar finishes for Edwards as the season's summer months set in. However, Edwards is strong at the fuel-mileage game, and it almost paid off for him in the July race at Kentucky. With Brad Keselowski saving fuel, Edwards made up a gap of nearly six seconds in the race's final 10 laps. But Edwards couldn't quite get past the No. 2 Team Penske Ford, finishing .175 seconds behind.
Edwards was in strong contention for a win in October at Kansas, which he considers his hometown track. However, Kevin Harvick drove away from Edwards after a late restart, leading to the Joe Gibbs Racing driver's second runner-up finish at the 1.5-mile track. Edwards expressed his disappointment with another close call at Kansas, but on the bright side it was his first top-five finish of the season's second half and he advanced to the Round of 8 in the Chase.
Edwards advanced to his first Championship 4 thanks to a rain-shortened win in November at Texas. Edwards took the lead on Lap 258 of an eventual 293 and benefited from a super fast pit stop late to close the deal. The victory came on the heels of a 36th-place finish at Martinsville, so the veteran was in pretty much in need of a win to advance to the Championship 4. It was the 28th premier series victory in his career and his fourth at the 1.5-mile track in Fort Worth. And it put him in position to avenge his runner-up finish to Tony Stewart in the 2011 Chase at Homestead.
With 10 scheduled laps to go in the Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Edwards restarted second alongside race leader Kyle Larson. But when Joey Logano went for an inside move, Edwards went to block him and the contact between the two championship-contending cars sent Edwards' No. 19 Toyota into the inside wall and out of the race. Edwards went from Chase leader to a 34th-place finish and experienced his second near-miss at Homestead in six seasons.
√=To his credit, Edwards didn't pout or place blame on anyone else in the face of the huge disappointment at Homestead. Instead, he got out of his car and walked toward pit road, climbed up the pit box of Joey Logano's team and offered his side of the story. Logano's crew chief, Todd Gordon, called Edwards a stand-up guy for coming over and having the talk. Meanwhile, Edwards could just walk away and shake his head and wait until 2017 for another shot at that elusive first championship.
Info taken from NASCAR.com.
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