Edwards wins again at Texas

Edwards emerged once again as the dominant force in a mile and a half track and kept in control of the race since he grabbed the lead on lap 215.

Just like he did at Fontana and Las Vegas, he kept among the top ten all day and attacked in the last part of the race to move up the field and keep reigning champion Jimmie Johnson at bay to take his tenth career win.

Despite the absence of his crew chief Bob Osborne, who is currently serving a suspension for a technical infringement found on Edwards' winning car at last Vegas, the Roush Fenway driver worked with his team under the guidance of Robbie Reisser to get his car's balance spot on when it mattered.

A late caution with only six laps remaining gave Johnson and Kyle Busch a shot at Edwards in the green-white-chequered finish, but the No. 99 car pulled away when the green flag waved and paced the field for the last two laps.

"It was extremely competitive out there," Edwards said. "There were a lot of cars that were virtually the same speed so it was really difficult to get the track position. Once we got it, the car was really good on clean air.

"On the last restart, might not look exciting to people watching, but it was real exciting for me in the race car to try not to spin those tyres in the end and hold Jimmie off."

Johnson matched his best result of the season with his second place finish and was the main Chevrolet challenger all day. His Hendrick teammates had difficult days with pole-sitter Dale Earnhardt Jr losing the balance of his car and ending up a lap down, while Jeff Gordon spun and made contact with the wall after fighting an ill-handling car all day.

"It was a good run for us throughout the day today," said Johnson, who has now moved up to sixth in the points. "I am real proud of the effort that has gone into picking up our intermediate track program. It really showed today. It was pretty uneventful day. We ran up front and led a little bit."

Kyle Busch finished third, recovering from his bad weekend at Martinsville, while Ryan Newman capitalized on fresh rubber for the last restart to cross the finish line fourth, although his car was found to be too high on the right rear in the post-race inspection.

He picked up two places just meters before the finish line when Clint Bowyer and Denny Hamlin made contact while battling for fourth place.

The race saw only six caution flags come out, which meant that only ten drivers were able to finish on the lead lap. Among them was Jeff Burton who ran a good race to finish sixth, holding on to his lead in the driver standings.

"We struggled," said Burton. "We were sometimes really good, then other times we weren't. Every time we came out of the pit the car was different. I'm not real sure we understand that, but we're plugging away. Pit road was awesome. We're working hard. We'll just keep plugging."

Patrick Carpentier was the highest finishing rookie in 28th although four laps down on the winner. His entry moved up the order but not enough to get back in the top 35 in the owner standings, something fellow rookie Sam Hornish Jr was able to achieve with his 32nd place, which helps him guarantee his start at Phoenix next week.

We're getting better in the race time and that's important," said Carpentier. "We need to get those points and a couple of top-30s there so I'm pretty happy about that.

"When you spend so much time qualifying it takes the whole race to get the car to work properly, you know, just sliding and sliding and sliding and fixing it and fixing it. We made some changes this morning and the car was pretty good at the end."

Next week Sprint Cup teams head back west for the eight round of the season at Phoenix International Raceway.

Pos  Driver               Make        Laps
 1.  Carl Edwards         Ford        339
 2.  Jimmie Johnson       Chevrolet   339
 3.  Kyle Busch           Toyota      339
 4.  Ryan Newman          Dodge       339
 5.  Denny Hamlin         Toyota      339
 6.  Jeff Burton          Chevrolet   339
 7.  Tony Stewart         Toyota      339
 8.  Mark Martin          Chevrolet   339
 9.  Matt Kenseth         Ford        339
10.  Clint Bowyer         Chevrolet   339
11.  Kevin Harvick        Chevrolet   338
12.  Dale Earnhardt Jr    Chevrolet   338
13.  David Ragan          Ford        338
14.  Jamie McMurray       Ford        338
15.  David Gilliland      Ford        338
16.  Brian Vickers        Toyota      338
17.  Paul Menard          Chevrolet   338
18.  Travis Kvapil        Ford        338
19.  Juan Montoya         Dodge       337
20.  Bobby Labonte        Dodge       337
21.  Dave Blaney          Toyota      337
22.  Casey Mears          Chevrolet   337
23.  Kurt Busch           Dodge       337
24.  Reed Sorenson        Dodge       337
25.  Kasey Kahne          Dodge       336
26.  Elliott Sadler       Dodge       336
27.  Scott Riggs          Chevrolet   336
28.  Patrick Carpentier   Dodge       335
29.  Mike Skinner         Toyota      334
30.  Robby Gordon         Dodge       334
31.  Michael Waltrip      Toyota      333
32.  Sam Hornish Jr       Dodge       333
33.  Michael McDowell     Toyota      332
34.  Bill Elliott         Ford        332
35.  Regan Smith          Chevrolet   331
36.  Martin Truex Jr      Chevrolet   330
37.  Joe Nemechek         Chevrolet   330
38.  Jeremy Mayfield      Chevrolet   329
39.  Greg Biffle          Ford        312
40.  John Andretti        Chevrolet   263
41.  David Reutimann      Toyota      253
42.  JJ Yeley             Toyota      173
43.  Jeff Gordon          Chevrolet   124