Edwards takes Fontana Cup win

Edwards recovered from being fourth on the last restart with 25 laps remaining to pull away and win the race under a caution finish, nearly 24 hours after it started following the rain interruptions that forced the race to be stopped on Sunday after 87 laps.

Before going by Jamie McMurray, Gordon and then Johnson, Edwards had already led a good number of laps and had built a six second lead at one point before a couple of caution flags came out.

His last pitstop demoted him from the lead down to fourth place but nobody had the speed to prevent him from moving up to the front again. Edwards was at one with his Ford Fusion, which seemed to slide under perfect control while running a very high line on the banking.

"My car was spectacular," Edwards said. "I just appreciate all the fans coming out here because it was a long night for them yesterday. I hope everybody enjoyed the show. It was a great race there with Jimmie and I was nervous to start back there, but it was just an unbelievable job from the crew to get this car ready to go.

"The track was a little bit different (from yesterday). This is one of the most fun racetracks that we race on, just a real blast to just ride here and slide around a lot. I appreciate all the people from the track crew, just for working so hard. They were up all night working on this thing. We appreciate it."

Jimmie Johnson led the most during the race, completing a total of 75 laps ahead and finishing a strong second in front of a reduced home crowd. His pit crew did a perfect job to put him in the lead for the final restart of the race but in the end had to settle for second, although not without forcing Edwards to work for his trophy first.

"We had a great day today," said Johnson, who moved up from 27th to eighth in the points. "It was a great day in the pits, a great day on the track. I was just a little too loose off the corners to really run with (Edwards) there. The guys did all they could for me to give me track position, I just couldn't hang on to it."

Jeff Gordon, who had been the driver to beat on Sunday, couldn't get his car to run as good in the hotter track conditions of Monday. On the final restart he tried to overtake Jimmie Johnson but couldn't finally pull off the pass.

He again put in a late charge on his teammate in the closing laps, but his engine blew up about a mile from the chequered flag.

"We did fight hard," Gordon said. "We had a great car out there in clean air, but nobody was going to beat Carl Edwards today, congratulations to him. They were in a league of their own.

"We got some work to do there but I feel that we were about equal with Jimmie. I just couldn't make the pass on that last restart and if you don't believe we didn't have anything left, we blew up right before the caution came out. We got very lucky today."

Kyle Busch finished a solid fourth and grabbed the points lead for the first time in his Cup career. He had a brush with the wall early on but still stayed in the top five for most of the day to be the best among the Toyotas.

"We had a great race car but just not quite as good as those guys there at the end," Busch said. "The 24 (Gordon), 48 (Johnson), 99 (Edwards) were real strong and we knew that from the beginning and from practice.

"But overall it was a good solid points day for us, we'll take it and when you don't have a winning car all you can hope for is a top five, so that's cool."

Busch now leads two of the three championships he currently contests, having won the Truck Series race on Saturday. He could also take over the points lead in the Nationwide series as well as he will be among the top players in the Stater Bros 300 to be held later today, being the fastest in the only practice before the race.

Matt Kenseth rounded up the top five ahead of Martin Truex Jr, Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick, Kasey Kahne and Daytona 500 winner Ryan Newman, who has dropped to second in the standing behind Busch.

Dario Franchitti had yet another day of learning finishing 32nd and two laps down on Carl Edwards with an ill engine. However, he achieved his first milestone for the record books, taking five bonus points for leading a lap under caution by staying out when the rest of the field pitted.

"I learned a lot," Franchitti said. "We went through a lot of different conditions between last night and today and I'm just getting used to driving the car and racing the cars as well.

"We were looking good for a top 30 there and we think we dropped a valve with five to go, but we ended up with a huge misfire with five laps to go and dropped three places. That was unfortunate. The car was pretty good. I learned a bunch about how slick the tracks are and how much the cars move around."

His teammate Juan Pablo Montoya looked set for his best finish on a two-mile track after running among the top 15 for most of the second part of the race but handling issues dropped him down to 20th place in the final part of the race following a brush with the wall.

"Today we got pretty good and before the last stop I hit the wall coming in, in the middle of three and four and I guess I knocked the toe out and I went from running 11th to 20th," Montoya said.

"It's been a boring week, but at least we ran better than we always run here so I was pretty happy about that."

Sprint Cup series teams will meet again this week at Las Vegas for the UAW-Dodge 400.

Pos  Driver                 Make       Laps
 1.  Carl Edwards           Ford        250
 2.  Jimmie Johnson         Chevrolet   250
 3.  Jeff Gordon            Chevrolet   250
 4.  Kyle Busch             Toyota      250
 5.  Matt Kenseth           Ford        250
 6.  Martin Truex Jr        Chevrolet   250
 7.  Tony Stewart           Toyota      250
 8.  Kevin Harvick          Chevrolet   250
 9.  Kasey Kahne            Dodge       250
10.  Ryan Newman            Dodge       250
11.  Brian Vickers          Toyota      250
12.  Jeff Burton            Chevrolet   250
13.  Kurt Busch             Dodge       250
14.  David Ragan            Ford        250
15.  Greg Biffle            Ford        250
16.  Mark Martin            Chevrolet   250
17.  David Gilliland        Ford        250
18.  Robby Gordon           Dodge       250
19.  Clint Bowyer           Chevrolet   250
20.  Juan Montoya           Dodge       250
21.  Scott Riggs            Chevrolet   250
22.  Jamie McMurray         Ford        250
23.  David Reutimann        Toyota      249
24.  Elliott Sadler         Dodge       249
25.  Bobby Labonte          Dodge       249
26.  Bill Elliott           Ford        249
27.  Paul Menard            Chevrolet   248
28.  Michael Waltrip        Toyota      248
29.  J.J. Yeley             Toyota      248
30.  Dave Blaney            Toyota      248
31.  Regan Smith            Chevrolet   248
32.  Dario Franchitti       Dodge       248
33.  Dale Jarrett           Toyota      247
34.  Joe Nemechek           Chevrolet   246
35.  John Andretti          Chevrolet   245
36.  Travis Kvapil          Ford        242
37.  Reed Sorenson          Dodge       240
38.  Kyle Petty             Dodge       236
39.  Jeremy Mayfield        Chevrolet   231
40.  Dale Earnhardt Jr      Chevrolet   203
41.  Denny Hamlin           Toyota      193
42.  Casey Mears            Chevrolet    20 
43.  Sam Hornish Jr         Dodge        20