Edwards wins Cup race at Las Vegas

The Roush Fenway driver was dominant in the final part of the race, just like he was a week ago at Fontana where he took his first win of the season. He led 86 of the 267 laps at the mile and a half oval, including 50 out of the last 80.

Not even a penalty for a pitroad violation in the first half of the race was enough to prevent him from winning again. Five cautions broke his rhythm at the front in the last 50 laps, but he seemed stronger on every restart as the speed of his closest rivals, Dale Earnhardt Jr and Matt Kenseth, seemed to fade on each green flag.

"Man, that was a pretty spectacular race car," Edwards said. "I was a little nervous on those restarts. I wasn't doing the best job and Dale (Earnhardt Jr) was doing pretty well all day, so we got real fortunate to hold everybody off.

"It's awesome, this is what it's all about. We've won two races in a couple of weeks and that's pretty good. I've never been a points leader before but I just have to go out and do it again next week."

A second penalty that would have ended Edwards' chances of victory was on the cards for a while, when a wheel went out of his designated pitbox during his final stop.

However NASCAR officials reviewed the incident on video and determined that a TV crew had interfered with the mechanic responsible for picking up the tyre on the pitwall.

The race had to be red-flagged just three laps from the end when Matt Kenseth got spun out of turn two by Jeff Gordon, as both were fighting for second place. They had just cleared Dale Earnhardt Jr during the penultimate restart when Gordon clipped the left rear of Kenseth's Ford.

While Kenseth was able to avoid hitting anything, Gordon spun and smashed the front end of his Chevrolet hard against the inside concrete wall. The back straight was full of debris and fluids from his car, forcing officials to stop the field and causing the race to end under a green-white-chequer finish.

"It was my fault," Gordon admitted. "We were all pushing so hard that I got a little bit tighter and beat Matt, drifted up into him. I was trying to stay out of hitting him after he spun and it just turned me sideways and I couldn't hit the wall in a worse angle. It really tore the thing up."

Kenseth, who looked set for a top five finish after leading 70 laps, had to be happy with 20th place after being forced to pit for tyres and a bent left rear corner once the red flag turned into the final caution. He blamed Gordon's tactics on the restart for the whole incident.

"It's disappointing but it all started way back in the restart," said Kenseth. "You know Jeff is kind of famous for laying back and NASCAR has said you can't leave more than a car length ahead but it's easily not enforced it to no one.

"I though him lying back he would have a run at me. We were three-wide going into (turn) one, we came up off two and I was as high as I could get and Jeff just came across and whether it was on purpose or not, he just wiped us out."

In the end it was up to Dale Earnhardt Jr to raise the Hendrick flag at the front, taking his car home to a second place finish, fending off a late attack from Greg Biffle. Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton rounded up the top five behind them.

Jimmie Johnson, who was looking for a fourth straight win at Las Vegas was nowhere near the front all day, struggling with a very loose car from the beginning of the race. He finished only 29th and two laps down on the race winner.

But at least he was able to go the distance, while others finished the race in the wall due to tyre-related issues. Tony Stewart was the first to fall victim to a blowout on lap 109, hitting the SAFER barrier between turns three and four so hard that he had to be helped out of his car as he complained from pain in his lower back.

"That's the hardest one I've taken in a long time," Stewart said. "It just blew a right front I guess and went straight in. It didn't try to turn or anything - it was a real tight part of the corner.

"It hit so hard it's got my lower back sore and made my legs almost feel about half-numb and just tingle until we got to the infield care centre."

Robby Gordon and Kurt Busch also finished their afternoons in similar fashion.

Polesitter Kyle Busch could only manage an 11th place finish in the end after leading 56 laps. He pitted under caution following the last stops for most of the leaders, dropped down the order and couldn't make his way back towards the front of the field.

Dario Franchitti was the highest finishing rookie and grabbed the lead of the Raybestos rookie standing. However it was a tough day for the Scot as he had anticipated, battling a very loose car in the beginning, which seemed the norm for all the Ganassi drivers.

"We had a very down and up race," Franchitti said. "We really had nothing to work on from Friday and Saturday, didn't have a decent car. We threw (Reed Sorenson's) setup on it from the 41 car, just everything on it and it was, for me, way, way too loose.

"I think Reed was loose as well and so we spent the first, I don't know, I'd like to say 100 laps just tightening the car up and unfortunately by that point we'd gone two laps down."

Sprint Cup teams will be testing Monday and Tuesday at Phoenix before heading east for next weekend's race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Pos  Driver                 Make       Laps
 1.  Carl Edwards           Ford        267
 2.  Dale Earnhardt Jr      Chevrolet   267
 3.  Greg Biffle            Ford        267
 4.  Kevin Harvick          Chevrolet   267
 5.  Jeff Burton            Chevrolet   267
 6.  David Ragan            Ford        267
 7.  Kasey Kahne            Dodge       267
 8.  Travis Kvapil          Ford        267
 9.  Denny Hamlin           Toyota      267
10.  Mark Martin            Chevrolet   267
11.  Kyle Busch             Toyota      267
12.  Elliott Sadler         Dodge       267
13.  Casey Mears            Chevrolet   267
14.  Ryan Newman            Dodge       267
15.  Martin Truex Jr        Chevrolet   267
16.  Jeremy Mayfield        Chevrolet   267
17.  Bobby Labonte          Dodge       267
18.  Reed Sorenson          Dodge       267
19.  Juan Montoya           Dodge       267
20.  Matt Kenseth           Ford        267
21.  Ken Schrader           Dodge       267
22.  Paul Menard            Chevrolet   266
23.  David Gilliland        Ford        266
24.  Brian Vickers          Toyota      266
25.  Jamie McMurray         Ford        266
26.  Dave Blaney            Toyota      266
27.  J.J. Yeley             Toyota      266
28.  Clint Bowyer           Chevrolet   265
29.  Jimmie Johnson         Chevrolet   265
30.  Mike Skinner           Toyota      265
31.  Michael Waltrip        Toyota      265
32.  Kyle Petty             Dodge       265
33.  Dario Franchitti       Dodge       265
34.  Regan Smith            Chevrolet   264
35.  Jeff Gordon            Chevrolet   262
36.  Scott Riggs            Chevrolet   260
37.  David Reutimann        Toyota      258
38.  Kurt Busch             Dodge       255
39.  Dale Jarrett           Toyota      231
40.  Patrick Carpentier     Dodge       182
41.  Sam Hornish Jr         Dodge       152
42.  Robby Gordon           Dodge       142
43.  Tony Stewart           Toyota      107