Carl Edwards avoided a crash that took Kyle Busch out of the race and held off a closing Brad Keselowski to score his 30th career NASCAR Nationwide Series victory in the O'Reilly Auto Parts 300 Friday night at Texas Motor Speedway. It is Edward’s second consecutive Nationwide win at TMS.

Edwards and Busch were running first and second on lap 88 when the lapped car of Tim Schendel blew a tire on the exit of turn one, sending him up the track as the leaders approached. Edwards narrowly missed Schendel while Kyle Busch was left with nowhere to go. The damage to Busch's JGR Toyota was too extensive for repairs.

"I was very close," Edwards said. "A split second later, it would have been over."

After final pit stops were completed Keselowski made a late-race run on Edwards, closing the gap to 0.482 seconds at the finish line. "Just came up a little bit short," said Keselowski.

Out front for 169 of the 200 laps, Edwards RFR Mustang dominated the event that brought the Ford brand its first NASCAR win.

Paul Menard finished third followed by Joey Logano and Elliott Sadler.

Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. maintains the 2011 Nationwide Series point lead with six races in the books.

The Nationwide Series return to action on April 16th in the Aaron's 312 at Talladega Superspeedway.

 MORE NASCAR NEWS