Edwards wins, moves up Chase standings

HAMPTON, Ga. – Lap after lap, Carl Edwards flirted with the outside walls on his way to another victory at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

While just about everyone else in the 43-car field for Sunday’s NASCAR Nextel Cup race tried to run well below those unforgiving walls, Edwards purposely hugged the concrete at speeds approaching 200 mph.

“I like running at the top of the racetrack,” Edwards said after completing a season sweep on the 1.5-mile, D-shaped oval. “It’s a blast.

“I used to race at this track in Holt Summitt, Missouri, and the fast line used to be with the right-side tires up on the guardrail. We won two track championships there just driving it on the guardrail.”

But, now, instead of racing at an obscure dirt track, Edwards is competing in NASCAR’s top stock car series and vying for a championship in his first full season of competition.

“I was worried that I would slip up and make a mistake, but the car was good enough that I didn’t have to drive hard enough to be in danger. It was just fun,” Edwards said.

The victory in the Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500 helped Edwards make up some ground in the Chase for the championship, moving him from fifth into a tie for fourth with Ryan Newman. Both now trail leader Tony Stewart by 107 points with three races remaining.

“Absolutely, we’re making a run,” Edwards said when asked if he believes he can win the title. “That’s why we were here today. We had some bad runs at New Hampshire and Martinsville, tracks I’m just not as good at. But, if we can just do well at the tracks that we are good at, we’ll do it.

“Anything can happen in racing, just anything. So we’re not going to quit until the last race.”

Edwards, who barely held off veteran Jimmie Johnson for his first Cup victory on the Georgia track in March, had a dominating car through the second half of Sunday’s 325-lap race.

Edwards lost a lead of more than 6 seconds when the last of nine caution flags waved for debris on lap 283. But he was able to regain control and pulled away to earn his third victory of the season, beating four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon to the finish line by 2.713-seconds, half the front straightaway on the 1.5-mile oval.

Edwards, who did his patented backflip off the window ledge of his No. 99 Ford after the race, led eight times for 115 laps, including the final 36.