DARLINGTON, S.C. — Friday’s Diamond Hill Plywood 200 began with a bang — literally — for polesitter Carl Edwards. After breaking Ryan Newman’s 7-year-old track record by lapping the 1.366-mile oval at 176.995 miles per hour during qualifying, Edwards got loose and scraped the wall in turns three and four while trying to hold off second-place starter Clint Bowyer for the lead on the first lap. A lap later, Edwards’s No. 60 Scotts Water Smart Ford Fusion pounded the SAFER barrier in turn one, sustaining heavy right-side damage and ending the night early for the defending series champion.

• Edwards’s Roush-Fenway Racing teammates also had a rough night at Darlington. Matt Kenseth went from leading the race to slamming the frontstretch wall within 10 laps, effectively ending his night and his hopes for a second Darlington victory.
Kenseth pitted for a loose wheel while leading on lap 121, then lost control of the No. 17 CitiFinancial Ford trying to become the free pass car.
“Two weeks in a row — last week at Richmond, we came out of the pits and had a wheel roll across (pit road), and this week we had a loose one, so it’s frustrating,” Kenseth said.
David Ragan also found trouble in Darlington, pounding the backstretch inside wall on lap 137 after contact with Steven Wallace coming out of turn two.

• Denny Hamlin’s shot at a Darlington hat trick ended abruptly in qualifying.
Hamlin, who won the Nationwide Series event last weekend at Richmond, made contact with the wall in turns one and two during his qualifying lap. Not only did the mistake erase his chance at his third-straight pole at Darlington, it eliminated Hamlin from the starting lineup, as he had to qualify on time.
Hamlin had won both the pole and the race in each of the previous two races at Darlington.

• For the second week in a row, Kyle Busch had harsh words for the competition after crashing out of Friday’s Diamond Hill Plywood 200.
Busch collided with the lapped car of Brad Keselowski in turn one on lap 101, then drove the heavily damaged No. 32 Beringer Vineyards Toyota to the garage.
“We’ve got a lap car that’s out there that’s racing with us leaders showing disrespect,” said Busch. “Next time I’m a lap down and I’ve got damage, I’m going to race him like an S.O.B. and wreck him, too.”