Edwards runs lean to Texas win

The Roush Fenway driver scored back-to-back victories thanks to some smart strategy and a light right foot in the closing laps. Edwards had led 199 laps out of the first 263 but on the last caution of the day he pitted for four tyres and fuel, while other changed only right-side tyres.

He dropped to fifth after that, and for a while it looked like he wouldn't be able to round out his dominant performance with victory.

However Jamie McMurray, who led after his two-tyre stop on the last caution, pitted with 13 laps to go under green flag conditions. Clint Bowyer and Greg Biffle, who were running second and third were on the same strategy as McMurray and also pitted, dropping down the order.

As the race approached the last ten laps, Edwards' only chance of winning was by trying to make it to the end without stopping again. He tried to coast to the chequered flag by not running full throttle at all, nursing his car into the corners without braking and keeping up his momentum.

Despite running up to two seconds a lap slower than those cars with fuel and fresher rubber, Edwards had a significant cushion to Dale Earhnardt Jr and Jeff Gordon behind him who were also gambling on fuel mileage. But he still had to make it to the end.

Earnhardt ran out of fuel with 5 laps to go, while Gordon coasted, as did Edwards, to make it across the finish line. McMurray, running at full speed, was only able to recover up to third, finishing more than eleven seconds behind his teammate.

"Fuel mileage was big and my Ford Fusion gets great fuel mileage, I can tell you that," Edwards said. "This is a fun place. I don't know what to say. My guys did a great job. We took off after a while.

"We made probably the wrong call to take four tyres, but (crew chief) Bob (Osborne) came up with a way to win that thing anyway, that was great.

"First he Bob said, 'We're two-tenths of a lap short, so conserve.' Then he came back and said, 'No, we're four laps short, just go real hard and we'll pit.' Then he came back again and said, 'We'll conserve.'

"So just by all that I kind of knew that he wasn't too sure about it, but I'm really glad it worked out. It's unreal. It's a great day."

With Jimmie Johnson running far from the front all day after struggling with handling issues, Edwards' perfect score allowed him to cut 77 points off the reigning champion's lead in the Chase.

Johnson only managed a fifteenth-place finish, a lap down on the winner, having lost the lap early on. Despite improving the handling of the car throughout the race, long green flag runs and the lack of cautions didn't allow him to get back on the lead lap to challenge for a stronger finish.

"That sucked," said Johnson, who leads the Chase now by 106 points over Edwards. "First three runs we were just terrible. After that we got the car better and I ran in the top four, top six throughout the rest of the race, but just never had a chance to get a lap back.

"We were close a couple times, maybe a car or two away. We just got off at the start of the race, with all the green flag running, we just couldn't get back on the lead lap. But we made the car better and ran well. Just don't have the finish to show for it."

His teammate Gordon recovered from being a lap down after leading early on from pole position. In a day where the Hendrick Motorsports cars were off the winning pace of the Roush Fenway contingent, runner-up was more than what the four-times champion would have been able to get without his fuel mileage gamble.

"The team never gave up," said Gordon, who moved up one spot in the Chase to fifth. "Real proud of them. (Crew chief) Steve Letarte made a great call there. It kind of fell our way. But he still thought about if it went all the way on fuel, and that's what it takes to come home second on a day like today. We were a lap short.

"But, you know, we came in, fueled up, made some adjustments. Car was really pretty good on that last run. He said, hey, you know, I think we're going to be a lap short. I know I conserved a little bit. I thought, you know, we could make it, and we did."

McMurray scored his best result of the season despite having missed out on a possible win. Jack Roush's cars were clearly the class of the field as all five finished in the top-eleven, and three of them in the top-five.

"(Crew chief) Larry (Carter) just made a great call to put two tyres on with 70 laps to go and we ran that out and put two more tyres on, but some of those guys were able to make it on fuel," said McMurray.

"But, overall, that was cool to get the lead that way and it's pretty exciting to have the possibility to win, so the guys did a really good job in the pits all night."

Clint Bowyer and Greg Biffle rounded up the top-five, while Kyle Busch was sixth in one of his most competitive runs during the Chase. He looked capable of taming Edwards at some point and ran the same tyre strategy on the last stop under caution but didn't gamble on fuel in the end and stopped once more.

"Clean air was so important here and we had to get up front," Busch said. "We never really got there. We got there once but then it kind of got demoralized because of the pit stops that came there at the end of the race with the last caution flag pit stop.

"Those guys took two and just got track position on us. We battled all day to get up there and then we got shuffled back. It was the best we could do with the car we had."

Also running strong within the top ten for most of the race was Juan Pablo Montoya, who was taken out by David Gilliland. NASCAR eventually parked the Yates driver for reckless driving as he wasn't even on the lead lap when he wrecked Montoya out of seventh place, retalitating for a previous coming together with the Colombian.

Sam Hornish was the highest finishing rookie in 23rd, while Brad Keselowski had a solid Sprint Cup debut driving the No. 25 Hendrick Motorsports Chevy to a respectable 19th place finish.

Pos  Driver              Car        Laps
 1.  Carl Edwards        Ford        334
 2.  Jeff Gordon         Chevrolet   334
 3.  Jamie McMurray      Ford        334
 4.  Clint Bowyer        Chevrolet   334
 5.  Greg Biffle         Ford        334
 6.  Kyle Busch          Toyota      334
 7.  Kevin Harvick       Chevrolet   334
 8.  Martin Truex Jr     Chevrolet   334
 9.  Matt Kenseth        Ford        334
10.  David Reutimann     Toyota      334
11.  David Ragan         Ford        334
12.  Mark Martin         Chevrolet   334
13.  Jeff Burton         Chevrolet   333
14.  Casey Mears         Chevrolet   333
15.  Jimmie Johnson      Chevrolet   333
16.  Tony Stewart        Toyota      333
17.  Denny Hamlin        Toyota      333
18.  Brian Vickers       Toyota      332
19.  Brad Keselowski     Chevrolet   332
20.  Dale Earnhardt Jr   Chevrolet   332
21.  Marcos Ambrose      Toyota      332
22.  Paul Menard         Chevrolet   332
23.  Sam Hornish Jr      Dodge       332
24.  Kasey Kahne         Dodge       331
25.  Scott Riggs         Chevrolet   331
26.  A.J. Allmendinger   Dodge       331
27.  Michael Waltrip     Toyota      331
28.  Ryan Newman         Dodge       331
29.  Dave Blaney         Toyota      331
30.  Ken Schrader        Toyota      331
31.  Bill Elliott        Ford        330
32.  Travis Kvapil       Ford        330
33.  Scott Speed         Toyota      330
34.  Regan Smith         Chevrolet   329
35.  Elliott Sadler      Dodge       329
36.  Robby Gordon        Dodge       329
37.  Reed Sorenson       Dodge       328
38.  Joe Nemechek        Chevrolet   328
39.  Bobby Labonte       Dodge       328
40.  Joey Logano         Toyota      327
41.  Kurt Busch          Dodge       267
42.  David Gilliland     Ford        266
43.  Juan Montoya        Dodge       262

Chase For The Cup - Points Standing:

Pos  Driver              Change  Points
 1.  Jimmie Johnson               6366
 2.  Carl Edwards                 6260  +106
 3.  Greg Biffle                  6223  +143
 4.  Jeff Burton                  6154  +212
 5.  Jeff Gordon           +1     6111  +255
 6.  Clint Bowyer          +1     6099  +267
 7.  Kevin Harvick         -2     6087  +279
 8.  Matt Kenseth          +1     5973  +393
 9.  Tony Stewart          -1     5962  +404
10.  Kyle Busch            +2     5938  +428
11.  Dale Earnhardt Jr     -1     5937  +429
12.  Denny Hamlin          -1     5935  +431