NASCAR: Edwards' title hopes dashed by crash

A multi-car crash involving title contenders Carl Edwards and Joey Logano brought out the red flag with 10 laps to go in the championship-deciding finale.

Kyle Larson led on a restart with 10 to go, with Joey Logano on the inside and Carl Edwards behind Logano. Logano got a good jump and tried to pass, but Edwards blocked all the way down to the paint, and it sent Edwards hard left into the inside wall before sling-shotting up the track into Kasey Kahne, which sent the back end of Edwards' car into the air before another hard impact with the outside wall. Edwards had led a contender-high 47 laps.

"He came down right in front of me,'' Logano said over his radio.

Edwards got out of the car uninjured and made his way to the 22 pit, where he shook hands with the Penske crew and told them to "go get it." Logano came in under yellow for a brief stop.

"I think it was shared [responsibility]. It was just racing," Edwards said. "The way I had it figured is ... Joey was so good on the short run – I don't know how he got that restart, it was a really good restart – I thought everything was gonna work out, and Jason told me he was looking low and he was there, and I just pushed the issue as far as I could because I figured that was the race there.

"Joey just timed it perfectly. He moved down, I thought, I could feel him a little, and I just thought, that was probably a little optimistic, but I thought I'd clear him or force him to lift. I thought I had just a little more time. But he drove down as far as a guy could be expected to drive down, and that's how it ended.

"This is life – we do our best and I risked too much. I had to push it – I couldn't go to bed tonight and think that I gave him that lane."

Logano agreed with Edwards assessment: "That was my shot," he said of his aggressive restart move that led to the multi-car wreck. "If I don't get him right there I don't win the race. So, I didn't have an option; I had to do something to try and win this thing."