NASCAR Xfinity Series

Check out this 6-pack of Bristol Motor Speedway bests

Published Apr. 18, 2016 5:53 p.m. ET

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It was an amazing Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway, where under beautiful spring Tennessee skies, Carl Edwards capped a spectacular weekend of racing with a dominating victory in the Food City 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race.

In fact, not only was it one of the best races of an already exciting season, there were a whole lot of bests set over the course of three days.

So in a salute to Bristol, here's a six-pack of bests from over the weekend.

6. BEST WEATHER -- One of the best things NASCAR's done in years is move Bristol's race date from March to mid-April. All three days at Bristol saw chamber of commerce weather, with cool mornings, warm afternoons and brilliant sunshine. That was a huge improvement over last year's debacle.

5. BEST XFINITY RACE -- There's been a lot of chatter this year about what's needed to fix the racing in the NASCAR XFINITY Series, which frankly has been awful at the longer tracks in 2016. Here's a hint: Race more on short tracks and less at 1.5-mile speedways. Saturday's XFINITY race was the best in recent memory with Erik Jones prevailing in a tight battle with Kyle Busch and Kyle Larson.

4. BEST CAREER FINISHES -- For the second week in a row, rookie Chase Elliott both finished in the top five and scored his career-best Cup finish. But the real star of the show was Matt DiBenedetto, who finished a remarkable sixth in his BK Racing Toyota. DiBenedetto's previous best finish was 18th at Talladega. And it was cool to see his tears of joy after the race, which was very moving.

3. BEST FINISHES OF THE YEAR -- Seven of the top nine finishers had their best results of 2016, and one tied his best. Edwards (first), Kurt Busch (third) Elliott (fourth), Trevor Bayne (fifth) DiBenedetto (sixth), Clint Boywer (eighth) and Ryan Newman (ninth) all got season's-best results. And Dale Earnhardt Jr. tied his with his third runner-up finish of 2016.

2. BEST COMEBACK -- When the ECU unit in Earnhardt's car went haywire at the start of the race, he lost nearly three full laps getting it reset. From there, Earnhardt had what he said was a 10th- to 15th-place car and drove all the way up to second place at the finish. That was a stout effort for the driver and his Hendrick Motorsports team.

1. BEST TEAM -- For the third weekend in a row, Joe Gibbs Racing swept both races. JGR cars also took the poles in both races and led every Cup practice. The other manufacturers have a lot of catching up to do at this point.

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