An electrical problem short circuited Carl Edwards' night at Lowe's Motor Speedway and in the process his championship hopes.
The Bank of America 500 started with a pit road miscue for Edwards and got worse from there when electrical troubles stopped the No. 99 Roush Fenway Ford in its tracks.
All Edwards could do was to sit helplessly in the car as his crew tried to find the problem.
"I switched all the switches," he said. "I tried everything I could. When that tow truck was pushing me, I tried a bunch of different stuff. I thought it might be something as simple as that ignition switch right there, but it wasn’t. It was something in that tray that houses all the MSD boxes and the coils.”
Edwards finally returned to the race but finished 33rd and fell from second to fourth in the standings, now 168 behind leader Jimmie Johnson.
"It’s not good," Edwards said. "I think we’re still fourth, though, so there are only three guys in front of us. We’ll be all right. There’s no other way to put it. It’s just a bad week. That’s all there is to it.”
The disappointing night capped off the tough week for Edwards that included last Sunday's crash at Talladega and his fight and feud with Kevin Harvick.
"There’s only one thing to do and that’s to learn from everything this week," he said. "That’s for sure. I can guarantee you that if I had the week to do over again, the last seven days would be a lot different. But you just have to do what you think is right at the time and move on after that. Today’s race didn’t help at all."
