Edwards wins at Bristol

Edwards overtook Kasey Kahne with 166 laps to go and from then on he never surrendered the lead, unchallenged for the rest of the race by the Gillett Evernham driver who had started from pole position.

"Just look around, this is it!" the Roush Fenway driver said after taking his second win of the year at Bristol and celebrating with his trademark backflip in front of a sell out crowd of 160,000 fans.

"This is the biggest race of the year as far as the fans and the intensity, the nerves and energy and all that. To win this race I always thought would be the most unbelievable thing. This is the biggest one of my career, I'm just so excited."

Kahne led 305 laps from pole and was clearly the class of the field in the first half of the race. Despite finishing second, he still enjoyed what is probably his best race of the season thus far in what has been a disappointing year for his team.

"It feels good, it was a good weekend and I had a great car," said Kahne. "It's good to have a good run, you know, we haven't had many this year so to have a clean weekend was a lot of fun.

"We dominated the first half and [Carl] kind of dominated the second half. That's what we had tonight. That's what we got."

Clint Bowyer did not lead a lap but ran steadily in the top ten and was able to move up in the last part of the race to get a key third place, which all but secures him a spot in the Chase for the first time in his career.

Tony Stewart finished fourth and was the biggest mover in the standings, gaining two positions to move up to second behind Jeff Gordon. The Joe Gibbs driver did not lead the race either but had the kind of run that he expects to carry into the Chase, which kicks off in three weeks.

"We just got going there at the end," Stewart said. "We got a really good run there, got by the 8 (Earnhardt), the 2 (Kurt Busch) and the 12 (Newman), so I'm really proud, we did a good job tonight. This place is awesome, it was fun tonight because you could go from the bottom to the top [of the track]."

His teammate Denny Hamlin had a disappointing night at Bristol retiring on lap 209 with an engine failure, which sent him spinning out of contention. He had already recovered from starting 37th and was running solidly in the top five, way ahead of Stewart at the time.

Rounding up the top five was Dale Earnhardt Jr who had a good race and did his best to beat Kurt Busch, who finished just behind him in sixth. This did not allow him to make any big gains in the standings and he remains 13th in the points. A good finish from Busch next week at California could mathematically end Earnhardt's Chase hopes.

"I ran as good as I can run," Earnhardt said. "We ran good, Kurt run good here and it was hard to gain anything here but we were able to finish far ahead of them. I tell you, we did pretty good because he wins a lot here."

Points leader Jeff Gordon was running well until he made a scheduled pitstop just before the fourth caution of the day came out. This dropped him a lap down on the leader and he then got caught up in an incident triggered by a spinning Ricky Rudd with 49 laps to go. He eventually finished 19th.

His teammate Jimmie Johnson had also a very bumpy ride to a 21st place finish. He got into the back of Matt Kenseth when Rudd spun and then also made contact with Juan Pablo Montoya, who was trying to avoid the incident on the inside.

Matt Kenseth, another one of the Chase contenders involved in the wreck, was unable to rejoin the race due to the damage on his car and was classified in 39th place. Despite that, he is already locked in to be one of the drivers fighting for the Nextel Cup, as are Gordon, Stewart, Hamlin and his teammate Carl Edwards.

Juan Pablo Montoya could not carry his front row starting position into a good result in his second visit to Bristol. After a bad adjustment on his car during the first pit stop, he started to drop back and the absence of any caution flags in that first half of the race hurt him.

He dropped a lap down as a consequence but got back on the lead lap during the seventh caution of the race. After being involved in Rudd's incident he lost a few spots and then had an interesting battle with Kevin Harvick in the end. The Colombian finished 17th, improving from his first showing at the track in March.

"You know, it's my fault. I'm blaming myself," Montoya said. "I was too loose for my taste and I thought we were going to be too loose. We tightened up the car and it was just horrible.

"And when we tightened it up we run for 130 laps so we went a lap down there. It was hard but we had fun today, we ran good. I'm proud of my guys."

The race for the Chase now moves on to California Speedway next weekend, a track where the Fords from Roush Fenway Racing are expected to be the dominant force once again.

Pos  Driver              Make        Laps
 1.  Carl Edwards        Ford         500
 2.  Kasey Kahne         Dodge        500
 3.  Clint Bowyer        Chevrolet    500
 4.  Tony Stewart        Chevrolet    500
 5.  Dale Earnhardt Jr   Chevrolet    500
 6.  Kurt Busch          Dodge        500
 7.  Ryan Newman         Dodge        500
 8.  Bobby Labonte       Dodge        500
 9.  Kyle Busch          Chevrolet    500
10.  Greg Biffle         Ford         500
11.  Martin Truex Jr     Chevrolet    500
12.  Jeff Burton         Chevrolet    500
13.  J.J. Yeley          Chevrolet    500
14.  David Stremme       Dodge        500
15.  Reed Sorenson       Dodge        500
16.  Kevin Harvick       Chevrolet    500
17.  Juan Montoya        Dodge        500
18.  Scott Riggs         Dodge        500
19.  Jeff Gordon         Chevrolet    500
20.  Robby Gordon        Ford         500
21.  Jimmie Johnson      Chevrolet    499
22.  Casey Mears         Chevrolet    498
23.  Michael Waltrip     Toyota       498
24.  Paul Menard         Chevrolet    498
25.  Bill Elliott        Ford         498
26.  Jamie McMurray      Ford         498
27.  Jeff Green          Chevrolet    498
28.  Tony Raines         Chevrolet    498
29.  Elliott Sadler      Dodge        497
30.  David Gilliland     Ford         497
31.  Dave Blaney         Toyota       496
32.  Kenny Wallace       Dodge        496
33.  Ward Burton         Chevrolet    494
34.  Dale Jarrett        Toyota       494
35.  A.J. Allmendinger   Toyota       491
36.  Aric Almirola       Chevrolet    485
37.  Jeremy Mayfield     Toyota       481
38.  Ricky Rudd          Ford         478
39.  Matt Kenseth        Ford         452
40.  John Andretti       Dodge        416
41.  David Ragan         Ford         414
42.  Johnny Sauter       Chevrolet    280
43.  Denny Hamlin        Chevrolet    209