BRISTOL, Tenn. -- Carl Edwards led the final 128 laps to notch his second victory of the 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup season, holding off Kasey Kahne to win Saturday night’s Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway

Edwards led a career-high 182 laps to post his sixth career victory - his first at Bristol – a secure himself a spot in the Chase for the Nextel Cup.

Edwards grabbed the lead with 166 laps to go after Kahne got caught up behind a lapped car, allowing Edwards and Earnhardt, Jr. to slip by. Edwards re-gained the lead following a round of pit stops and took held the point for the remaining laps to beat Kahne by 1.405 seconds.

"This is the biggest win of my career,” said Edwards. “To win the night race at Bristol is huge and I can't thank (crew chief) Bob Osborne enough for making the right calls.

“We were dropping back at the beginning and he used everything he knew and all the engineering and everything that he could muster to make some adjustments and the car just kept getting better and better. We had a blast.”

Clint Bowyer was third, followed by Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Tony Stewart.

Kahne and Edwards easily had the cars to beat, combining to lead 487 of the 500 laps.

Coming off a victory in Friday night’s Busch Series event, Kahne started on the pole and led the first 37 laps before trading the top spot with Edwards. Kahne would re-gain the lead on lap 66, leading the next 270 laps with Edwards and Earnhardt in pursuit.

Encountering lapped traffic on lap 332, Kahne got boxed in, allowing Edwards and Earnhardt, Jr. to slip by.

After completing his final pit stop on lap 360, Edwards regained the top spot and held off Kahne through the final five restarts for the victory.

“We couldn’t (catch up to Edwards),” said Kahne. “Those guys did a good job. They beat us to the end. We dominated I think the first half. The car was really good. We just got a little bit, the car felt good still at the end. He was just cutting through the center a touch better than me and we ran second.”

“Those restarts were just wearing out my nerves there,” said Edwards. “That took about three or four years off of my life, with the cautions and knowing we were gonna have restart after restart, but to win this race is huge.”

Although Edwards locked himself in the Chase, the battle for the 12th and final transfer spot continued to heat up.

After a couple of weeks of bad luck, Earnhardt, Jr. looked to turn things around and Bristol in hopes of chasing down Kurt Busch for the 12th and final transfer spot in the Chase for the Nextel Cup, and answered the call with a fifth-place showing, but only gained five points on Busch, who finished just one spot behind in sixth to hold onto 12th in the standings.

Earnhardt now trails Busch by 158 with two races to go before the cutoff for the 10-race Chase for the Nextel Cup.

“I want to win. If I can't get into the Chase, let's win a race. Let's do something,” said Earnhardt, Jr. “When we don't make (the Chase) everybody makes a big deal out of it. They talk about it pre-race, they talk about it post-race for a couple weeks and it is a bummer. It's a bummer when you see that and have to watch that and read it and what not.

“I'll be more ticked off if I don't win a race this year because I've run good all year. We've had so many opportunities, you know? And you won't credit for running fifth and blowing up, running up second blowing up. You just won't."

Saturday night’s race also had a serious impact on the frontrunners in the point’s standings.

Series points leader Jeff Gordon got caught a lap down during a round of green-flag pit stops and found himself playing catch-up for the rest of the night, getting collected in a wreck before finally getting back on the lead lap to finish 19th, one spot worse than were he started.

Denny Hamlin, second in points behind Gordon, started the race from the rear of the field after an engine change, only to have his night ended after the replacement motor gave out on lap 211, recording the second DNF of his career and knocking him back one place in the standings to third behind Stewart.

Matt Kenseth and Jimmie Johnson, third and sixth in points respectively coming into Saturday’s race, were involved in the biggest wreck of the night on lap 452 after Ricky Rudd spun, collecting Johnson, Kenseth, Jeff Gordon and David Gilliland. Kenseth was done of the night, finishing 39th and dropping one spot to fourth in the points behind Hamlin.

Saturday night’s race was the first at Bristol since the track was re-surfaced, replacing the old asphalt with concrete. The new surface seemed to open up a higher groove for drivers to run, and the end result was not your typical Bristol as the first 126 laps ran caution free as drivers didn’t have to apply the bump-and-run as often.

“It was kind of nice not to have to move people out of the way, that was what was fun tonight ” said Stewart. “You could run all over the racetrack, that was what was so much fun about it. I can tell you, I don't know what it was like from the outside of the car to watch it, but at least from the inside it was fun. You could race. Guys weren't running over each other to pass each other

“You could work the outside, you could work the inside, you could go and race people here tonight instead of the normal just bump people out of the way and go on by. It was fun to race like that.”

Results

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