Edwards cruises past field at Nationwide

Carl Edwards dominated the NASCAR Nationwide Series race Saturday night at Nashville Superspeedway in Gladeville, Tenn.

The Sprint Cup star was so overpowering that not even a penalty, an upset stomach or fellow Sprint Cup driver Brad Keselowski could stop him.

He did his customary back flip off the car and then even went into the stands afterward to celebrate with the fans. “It’s just to give a couple people high-fives and to see the looks on their faces,” said Edwards, who led a race-high 125 laps and has a total of six wins at the track, five in Nationwide and one in the truck series. “I wish more drivers would do it.”

Edwards’ teammate at Roush Fenway Racing, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., finished second and Mike Dillon was third.

Edwards, who leads the Sprint Cup points race over Jimmie Johnson, was leading when the first caution came out on lap 82 for debris. The next lap he entered the pits and was penalized for speeding and NASCAR officials ordered him to the rear of the longest line of cars for the restart.

Edwards worked his way back through the field and passed Dillon on lap 120 for the lead. On the pass the air from Edwards’ car caused Dillon to wiggle wildly in turn four. Dillon, the winner of the truck series race at this track Friday night and grandson of longtime car owner Richard Childress, fell to third.

Keselowski, the pole winner, was in command of the race when he radioed his crew that he was slowing because of a dropped cylinder on lap 166. Keselowski led 88 laps and placed 12th.

IndyCar

Takuma Sato will start from the pole at today’s Edmonton (Alberta) Indy, and Will Power earned the other spot in the front row.

Sato, the 34-year-old from Tokyo, drove the 13-turn, 2.2-mile road course at the City Centre Airport in 1 minute, 18.5165 seconds at an average speed of 101.97 miles per hour.

That was five-hundredths of a second faster than Team Penske driver Power.

Scott Dixon will start on the inside of the second row beside Dario Franchitti, his teammate at Target Chip Ganassi.

Formula 1

Mark Webber will start from the pole position at the German Grand Prix after narrowly beating McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull teammate Sebastian Vettel in qualifying in Nuerburgring, Germany.

The Australian posted a time of 1 minute, 30.079 seconds around the 3.2-mile Nuerburgring circuit, with Hamilton 0.065 seconds behind in a surprising performance. Vettel, the defending champion and 2011 points leader, finished a further 82 thousands of a second off the pace.