Edwards wants to put pressure on Johnson

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- Carl Edwards looks at the last three NASCAR Sprint Cup races of 2008 and sees nothing but opportunity.

Sure, the series runner-up trails leader Jimmie Johnson by a daunting 183 points. And with Johnson needing only to finish ninth or better in the remaining events to win his third consecutive Cup title, it probably isn't a good omen for Edwards that Johnson has finished ninth or better in each of the seven Chase for the championship races so far this year -- or that Johnson is the defending winner of Sunday's Dickies 500.

There is also the fact that the biggest comeback over the final three races since the current points system began in 1975 came in 1990 when Dale Earnhardt overcame a 49-point deficit.

Never mind the overwhelming odds. Edwards, coming off a win at Atlanta, likes to think it's Johnson who is under the gun heading into the race at Texas Motor Speedway.

"I'm sure there's pressure on him," Edwards said. "I've been in a couple of championship battles; the ones that I remember the most were the ones at my local dirt track and stuff. It wears on you and it's easier to come from behind, that's for sure.

"Anytime you've got a lead and it's shrinking, that's real nerve-racking. Just mentally we have an advantage because it is so much easier to do it that way, I think."

Besides Edwards, the only drivers with a legitimate chance to catch Johnson are third-place Greg Biffle, 185 points behind, and fourth-place Jeff Burton, 218 points out of the lead.

Biffle is also trying hard to stay positive.

"Definitely the wheels can fall off that (No.) 48 in a hurry," Biffle said. "We've seen it happen and maybe you get comfortable and kind of relaxed and stuff jumps out and bites you. That can happen. Absolutely.

"After Phoenix (next week), if he's got enough margin to clinch the title, then we will walk away with our tail between our legs. But until then, we're not going to."

Burton, while not ready to concede the title to Johnson, is more of a realist.

"I'm sure that Jimmie will be in mode to not do anything stupid," Burton said. "He doesn't have to force the issue. "

Burton noted the best thing that could happen for his pursuers would be for Johnson to start racing for points instead of wins.

"I'm sure they're in the position where they've had to look at that and I'm sure they're looking at what can they do differently to make sure they do protect (the lead)," Burton said. "The best offense that I've ever seen played was (a) prevent defense (in football). When teams go to prevent defense it seems like a lot of points get scored."

Johnson understands the possibilities, which is exactly why he and his Hendrick Motorsports team will try not to do anything different than what has gotten them to this point.

"We really look at ourselves as a team and focus on our strengths and our weaknesses and try to maintain the strengths and prevent the weaknesses," he explained. "So, the more simple we can keep things and not focus on what other guys have gone through, I think the better it is."

Several people have asked Johnson this week if he has thought much about the disastrous three-race run by Kyle Busch at the start of this year's Chase. Busch, who won eight races and dominated the 26-race regular season, finished 34th, 43rd and 28th at the start of the postseason and was out of contention almost before the 10-race title run began.

"That's a great example of what can happen in a three-race stretch," Johnson said.

And that's exactly why Johnson is determined to keep racing for wins and top-five finishes after a win and a second-place finish the past two weeks.

"We're just as focused and determined this weekend to do our jobs as we were last week and at Martinsville," he said. "This is racing and we still have at least a thousand miles of racing left. And that's why we're here on Sundays to race. You've got to go out there and execute."

And Edwards, Biffle and Burton can still dream.


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Busch gets 10th Nationwide victory

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- Kyle Busch overpowered the field Saturday in the NASCAR Nationwide Race at Texas Motor Speedway, winning in the second-tier series for a record-tying 10th time this season.

Busch, whose first victory of the season came on the same 1.5-mile oval in April, matched Sam Ard's season record set in 1983. He held off a charging Carl Edwards in the final laps of the O'Reilly Challenge.

The strong run by Edwards, combined with Clint Bowyer's sixth-place finish, moved Edwards within 91 points of the series leader with two races remaining.

Although Busch has had a disappointing run in the Chase for the Sprint Cup and is out of contention for the title despite dominating the regular season, he has a total of 21 victories this season, including eight in Cup and three in trucks.

But this one was special as the 23-year-old Busch dedicated the latest win to South Carolinian Ard, a two-time Nationwide --then called the Busch Series -- champion suffering from Alzheimer's disease and in tough straits financially.

"Sam Ard was one of the pioneers of the sport and this really means a lot to me," Busch said after his now-traditional victory bows to the crowd. "I got to thinking about it and I decided I'm going give him $100,000 to try to help him out."

Edwards, who won the Nationwide title a year ago, is second in both this series and Cup, where he will try to cut into Jimmie Johnson's 183-point margin in Sunday's Dickies 500.

Edwards gave up some track position Saturday, falling from second to fifth when he took four fresh tires during a late pit stop, while Busch and Mark Martin, who finished third, took two. But Edwards quickly moved forward, taking second place from Martin on lap 196 and getting within three car lengths of the leader on the final lap.

"Man, I needed about two more laps," said Edwards, who drove from fifth to second after the final restart with seven laps to go. "We got 25 points on (Bowyer) today and now 91 points is completely doable, so I'm happy about that.

"We both had good cars today, but we got him with that late call (for four tires) and a little bit of traffic at the end."

Bowyer began the day 116 points ahead of Edwards and appeared to have one of the best cars on the track until he faded late in the race.

"We just got real tight at the end. We'll be all right," Bowyer said. "All-in-all, it was a good day."

But this day belonged to Busch, who led 174 of the 200 laps. The youngster, who has raced in only 28 of the 33 Nationwide events this season and is not a factor in the points race, also led 126 of 200 laps in the April win.

Saturday's victory was the 21st career win for Busch in Nationwide and the 19th win in the series this season for Joe Gibbs Racing.

"The year's not over, yet," Busch said. "I don't even know all the numbers, to tell the truth. It's just phenomenal the way this year's gone. But a lot of the success belongs to Joe Gibbs Racing and what they've done this year."

Eighteen-year-old Joey Logano, another JGR driver, turned in another solid performance, finishing fourth, with David Ragan fifth.

Kevin Harvick, who had won the past three fall Nationwide races here, ran in the top 10 most of the day, but wound up 29th after breaking an axle as he left the pits following a stop late in the race.


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Rookie of the year duel remains tight

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- There is one tight championship battle in NASCAR's Sprint Cup series.

While Jimmie Johnson goes into Sunday's Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway with a commanding 183-point lead over Carl Edwards in the Chase for the championship, Sam Hornish Jr. holds a mere 2-point margin over Regan Smith in the duel for rookie of the year.

"It's a tough thing because every time I feel like, 'All right, I ought to be doing really good,' I look in my rearview mirror and Regan's there," Hornish said Saturday. "I feel like we always kind of end up pretty close to each other. Probably about 75 percent of the time we're within two or three positions of each other, so I guess that's part of the rookie learning curve and being where we're at."

Hornish, a three-time IRL IndyCar Series champion and the 2006 Indianapolis 500 winner, just about had to start from scratch when he decided to make the move to NASCAR late last season. Smith came to Cup in a more conventional way, serving his apprenticeship in trucks and the Nationwide Series.

With the difference in background, each has his own learning curve.

"Definitely the biggest hurdle for me is getting used to the races being a little bit longer," Hornish said. "I've had all that experience running the IndyCars and a lot of times I consider those sprint races because they're 200 laps or 200 miles.

"Everything that we run over here is 400 or 500 laps or 400 or 500 miles. Sometimes pacing yourself to get to the end with all the fenders intact, keeping yourself not racing too hard the first three-quarters of the race and keeping yourself there for the end of it has been a little bit of a difficult thing."

Smith said it's NASCAR's new Car of Tomorrow that has been the toughest adjustment for him.

"The (Nationwide) car last year drove completely different than (this car) does on the Cup side," Smith noted. "You take away the fact that I think it's 100 horsepower difference, something like that, that affects the driving ability of it. Adjusting to that, adjusting to the fact that the car doesn't have as much downforce, it feels like it's on top of the racetrack more."

Both agree on one thing, though. Winning rookie of the year would be a huge accomplishment.

"We set out at the beginning of the year what our goals were going to be and we wanted to be Raybestos Rookie of the Year," said Hornish, who drives for Penske Racing. "We wanted to try and be in the top 20 in points. Well, we're not close to the top-20 in points and we feel if we would have gotten a lot of things a little bit more correct we would have been quite a bit higher up there. You only have one opportunity to win Raybestos Rookie of the Year, so you want to go out there and try to do it and get that accomplished."

Smith, driving for Dale Earnhardt Inc., echoed those sentiments.

"Neither one of us has had the kind of year that we expected to have this year," he said. "We both wanted to be sitting top 20 in points and then have some good top-10 finishes by now. Ultimately, the rookie thing would be a real cool thing to bring home at the end of the day and say, 'We still captured this.' It means a lot.

"It's been a tight battle and it's going to go right down to the last lap at Homestead."

------

AMERICAN WORKER: So far, luck is holding for Hale Hughes. The next step depends on Jeff Gordon.

Hughes, a resident of Woodville, Texas, was selected by Williamson-Dickie Manufacturing Co., makers of Dickies, as "American Worker of the Year." The oil field roughneck and safety manager was chosen among thousands of online entries as one of six regional finalists. The choices were based on commitment to their work and the ability to be a genuine example of an American worker.

The same committee then chose Hughes the overall winner after an interview.

Besides winning a 2009 Ford F-150 pickup and a Yamaha Rhino four-wheeler, Hughes will serve as grand marshall of Sunday's Dickies 500, getting things started with the traditional "Gentlemen, start your engines" command.

He also chose a car number in a blind draw on Saturday, picking the No. 24 of pole winner Jeff Gordon. Hughes wins $1 million if Gordon wins Sunday's race.

Texas and Homestead are the only current Cup tracks at which Gordon hasn't won, but Hughes wasn't worried.

"I kind of like my choice," he said. "He's never won here, so he's due."

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SPARK PLUGS: Two-time Cup champion Tony Stewart will drive a backup Toyota in Sunday's race after his primary car was badly damaged when his right rear tire exploded during Saturday's opening practice. ... Greg Biffle, third in the Cup points, led the first of the two practice sessions Saturday, while series runner-up Carl Edwards was fastest in the "Happy Hour" practice. Series leader Jimmie Johnson, who will start seventh in the race, was 12th fastest in the final session.


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Jeff Gordon down to three chances to avoid winless season

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- Jeff Gordon has only three more chances to avoid his first winless season since he was a rookie driver in 1993.

"It surprises me," Gordon said. "Not only did I feel like we could win this year, but I thought we could battle for the championship. Anytime you come off the season like we had last year, you've got confidence coming in that you're going to do it again or battle for it."

Instead of trying to win a season championship, after finishing as the runner-up to Hendrick teammate Jimmie Johnson last year, Gordon is just trying to win a race.

The first opportunity comes Sunday at Texas, one of the two active tracks where the four-time Sprint Cup champion with 81 race victories has never won. And where Gordon has the only last-place finishes in his 542 career races -- last April, and in 1999.

"I know it's a very challenging racetrack," he said.

Gordon did OK on Friday, where he was the quickest in practice and then earned his first pole at the 11/2-mile high-banked Texas track. Gordon started his No. 24 Chevrolet first in the 2007 spring race after qualifying was rained out.

Since 1994, Gordon has had multiple victories each season and won his four Cup titles between 1995 and 2001.

"I'll take a winless season if that means that the work we're doing now will pay off for us down the road for next season and puts us in position to win multiple races and battle for the championship," he said.

Gordon still has a good chance to be part of a third straight Cup title because he is the co-owner of Johnson's No. 48 car. Johnson has a 183-point lead over Carl Edwards.

"If I can't win it, I certainly want to support Jimmie and those guys at Hendrick," he said. "I'm excited to be a part of it, but it's not the same as doing it in my own car."

After Texas, there are races remaining at Phoenix and Homestead, the other track where Gordon hasn't won.

------

STAYING HOME: It looks like Mark Martin won't get an early start on driving the No. 5 Chevrolet after all.

Martin will move from Dale Earnhardt Inc. to Hendrick Motorsports next season, taking over the No. 5 from Casey Mears, who is moving to Richard Childress Racing.

It appeared last week that both of them would debut with their new teams at the Cup finale at Homestead. But Martin said Friday that the deal fell through and Phoenix next week will be his last race in the No. 8 DEI car.

"I'll be on the couch for Homestead with the remote," Martin said. "I won't be driving at Homestead, and as far as I know, I won't even be visiting."

Martin said he made himself available to Hendrick, making sure his obligations to DEI were wrapped up at Phoenix. But the veteran racer said Childress was unable to work out a way to get Mears into a fourth RCR entry for Homestead.

"It didn't work out on the other side for Casey," Martin said. "The details didn't quite line up."

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TOO LONG, TOO LATE: When the NFL season is done, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is like so many other football fans.

"The season ends before you want it to," Earnhardt said Friday. "You get just enough to get excited and then it's all over and there's such a long wait."

With a 36-race Cup schedule that runs February through mid-November, Earnhardt believes NASCAR is instead like baseball, hockey and other sports with long seasons.

"There's lulls and inactivity between the fan and the sport itself at times," he said. "There's no way to fix that."

Earnhardt remembers when the racing season was two months shorter, a 28-race schedule long before the inception of the Chase for the Sprint Cup. But he knows NASCAR won't be returning to that kind of setup.

"The sport was giving you just enough to get really excited about the next season," he said. "We've already passed the point of no return. There's no way we would change what we really already have here."

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VAULT FOR TROOPS: Mark Martin will be sporting camouflage at Texas, a special paint scheme on his No. 8 U.S. Army Chevrolet as part of a program to send handwritten messages to U.S. troops this holiday season.

The "Honoring the Uniform: Calling for Support" initiative replicates a popular service previously operated by the U.S. Department of Defense. Before being discontinued after 17 years in 2003 because of security concerns, mail could be addressed to "any service member."

Now pre-addressed postcards can be found on special camouflage-themed 12-packs of VAULT drinks. The postcards can then be dropped in the mail and will arrive at a USO collection center for security screening before being distributed to troops.

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SPARKPLUGS: Jeff Burton, Jeff Gordon, Bobby Labonte and Mark Martin are the only drivers who started all 15 Cup races at Texas. Each will make it 16 on Sunday. ... Since Texas got a fall race three years ago, the winner has always been the same driver that won the previous week at Atlanta, another 11/2-mile track owned by Bruton Smith. Carl Edwards won last week at Atlanta, like he did three years ago before winning the Dickies 500. Tony Stewart (2006) and Jimmie Johnson (2007) were the other Atlanta-Texas winners.


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Hornaday wins at Texas to close Trucks points lead

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- Ron Hornaday Jr. won at Texas again, coming from a lap down early for a dominating NASCAR Trucks Series victory that got him within six points of points leader Johnny Benson with two races to go.

Hornaday, caught in the pit on an early stop because of a caution, regained the lead from Kyle Busch on lap 108 of the 147-lap race at the 11/2-mile high-banked Texas Motor Speedway. Hornaday finished 0.958 seconds ahead of Busch, who led 87 laps in a backup truck salvaged this week from a hauler fire.

Benson finished third, nearly 9 seconds behind. But by passing two trucks in the final five laps to get that close, Benson retained the points lead in the close championship race -- though his margin was trimmed from 31.

"It's going to come down to the end. That's what it's all about," Hornaday said. "It's pretty cool. There are two more races. We'll see."

Hornaday, the first driver to sweep both Texas races since Brendan Gaughan did so in 2002 and 2003, won with an average speed of 126.210 mph. It was his sixth victory this season and 39th in his career.

"We'll take third and walk out of here," Benson said.

Next week, they go to Phoenix before the finale at Homestead.

After initially taking the lead from Busch on lap 51, Hornaday gave it up when he went to the pits five laps later. About the same time his crew jacked up the truck, a caution flag came out when Jack Smith made contact with the inside wall on the backstretch.

"I thought we were down and out again," Hornaday said.

That pushed Hornaday a lap down, but he was back on the lead lap by the time there was another caution on lap 66.

Midway through the race, Hornaday and Benson raced side-by-side and nose-to-tail for several laps. They were running ninth and 10th at the time.

On lap 108, Hornaday drove his Chrevrolet, owned by Kevin and DeLana Harvick, past Busch and Travis Kvapil. Hornaday stayed in front from there, building a 2-second advantage at one point.

Busch, also the runner-up to Hornaday in June, qualified this time in a truck that was salvaged from a hauler fire late Tuesday night that destroyed the primary truck and a lot of equipment owned by Billy Ballew Motorsports.

The backup truck was filled with water after firefighters put out the fire, but his crew got the Toyota ready for the race. And Busch led the first 50 laps.

Rick Crawford, one of only two drivers to run in all 22 truck races at Texas, started from the pole for the first time. He finished 11th after being involved in an early accident.

Todd Bodine, a four-time Texas winner, was fourth and Colin Braun fifth. Terry Cook, the other driver to run every Texas race, matched his best finish in sixth.

Cale Gale completed only one lap in his first start in the No. 2 Chevrolet, the same Harvick-owned truck that Ryan Newman drove to Victory Lane at Atlanta last week in his first Truck Series start.

On the second lap, with Kvapil inside of him, Cale moved up to give Kvapil more room, and made contact with Crawford running above him. That created a chain-reaction accident in which five trucks were damaged -- with Crawford the only one able to stay in the race. A 10-lap caution period was needed to clean up the track.

Hornaday was just in front of the melee. Benson, behind the mess, had to brake hard to avoid contact with other trucks and was able to get to the bottom of the track to avoid trouble.


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Jeff Gordon gets first Texas pole

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- The sun shined down on NASCAR on Friday and Jeff Gordon took full advantage of the chance to qualify for a Sprint Cup race for the first time in a month.

After qualifying was rained out three straight weeks, with NASCAR lining up the cars by points, Gordon won the pole for Sunday's Dickies 500 on the 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway oval. His fast lap of 118.469 mph relegated early leader Martin Truex Jr. to second at 188.003 in the 43-car field.

It was the fourth pole of the season for the four-time series champion, as well as the 67th of his career. But it was Gordon's first pole in 16 tries at Texas.

"Texas has not been our best track, so this is really good," said Gordon, whose only last-place finishes have both been at Texas, including finishing 43rd here last spring.

"It's a great start to the weekend," Gordon noted. "I'm always optimistic any time we go to any racetrack, whether we've been good or bad. As a race team we're just good enough to overcome anything that tries to tear us down.

"I came in here knowing that we've made huge changes and gains with our race package and our cars. The first lap on the track is always the first sign of where you are. The first lap I thought, "Well, this thing feels pretty good, just too tight.' We kept freeing it up and the car just kept getting faster and faster.

"It's a fantastic feeling and I'm still pretty shocked we came here and the car felt as good as it has today."

Gordon said he definitely didn't expect to win the pole Friday.

"The irony of it is the last three weeks not being able to qualify at tracks where I thought we had a pretty good chance to win the pole, and then to come here and win the pole at a track where I didn't really think we had a chance to win it," added Gordon, who is winless this season despite qualifying for the Chase for the championship. "I can't wait for Sunday."

Texas and Homestead, where the Cup drivers finish the season, are the only tracks on the current schedule at which Gordon, who has 81 career victories, has not won.

Series leader and defending race winner Jimmie Johnson, who started from the top spot after each of the rainouts, won't have the benefit of the first pick of pit positions this week after qualifying seventh.

Clint Bowyer, another of the 12 drivers in the Chase, was third, followed by Jamie McMurray and four more Chasers: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Matt Kenseth, Johnson and Tony Stewart.

The rest of the drivers in the Chase were well down the lineup, with series runner-up Carl Edwards, 183 points behind Johnson, 16th; Denny Hamlin 17th; third-place Greg Biffle 19th; Kevin Harvick 23rd; Kyle Busch 29th; and fourth-place Jeff Burton a very disappointing 38th.

"I'm glad we were able to get this (qualifying) in just to be able to spread the guys out in the Chase," said Edwards, who didn't seem very concerned to be starting so far back in the field. "It's not the best qualifying effort for us, but ... we've got a great race car."

Eighteen-year-old phenom Joey Logano qualified for his third Cup start and first in a car fielded by Joe Gibbs Racing, for whom he will race in 2009. The youngster, who will replace two-time Cup champion Stewart in the No. 20 Toyota next year, will start in last place.

Failing to make the field were Tony Raines, Bryan Clauson, Chad McCumbee, Max Papis and Johnny Sauter.


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Mental aspects tough on Chase contenders

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) -- NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup can be as much a mental game as it is a competition on the track.

Sleep sometimes comes hard for Jimmie Johnson, despite his big points. And some of Johnson's closest pursuers say they are spending as much time thinking about scenarios to catch the leader as they are getting their race cars prepared for the hunt.

One thing all of them agree on is that NASCAR's 10-race Chase for the championship never strays far from their minds.

"I have to work harder to ignore the Chase and what's going on than anything else in my life right now. I'm sure it's the same way for anyone that has a shot at this thing," Johnson said Friday at Texas Motor Speedway, where he will go into Sunday's race with a daunting 183-point lead over runner-up Carl Edwards.

With only three races remaining, lots of people have already conceded Johnson his third straight Cup title. But that doesn't make things any more comfortable for the Hendrick Motorsports driver.

"I have found that trying to manage my own mind, manage my emotions, it's a full-time job," Johnson said. "If you ignore it during the week and show up here on Friday, it's going to hit you hard and you're going to be overloaded with it. ... I try to keep myself occupied. I try to keep myself busy during the week and try to ignore as much as possible what's going on."

Greg Biffle, third in the standings just two points behind Edwards, also finds it hard to put the chase and the possibilities out of his mind.

"You think about it all the time because this is your life, this sport, and it's a lot of fun," Biffle said. "I try and do stuff to try and take my mind off of it and do other stuff, but we're thinking about it all the time.

"We'll think about what races are left 'OK, Texas, Phoenix, Homestead how are we gonna run there?' You kind of play those races through your head. We won here in '05 and certainly we feel like we can win here again. We feel like we can win in Phoenix and Homestead."

That's what keeps Biffle optimistic in the face of his big points deficit.

"You play those scenarios through your head that we know we're so many points behind, but we feel like we're going to be competitive in the next three," Biffle said. "So, you think about it a lot."

Fourth-place Jeff Burton, 218 points behind Johnson, is the longest of the long shots for this year's title. But he, too, can't get his mind off what could be.

"You constantly think about the Chase," he said, adding it's a year-around thing. "You constantly think about making sure you're in the Chase (and), if you're not in one of those cars, how to get there. If you are, how to stay there once you get into it. It feels like a whole new year. ... If your goal is to win the championship and be the best team out there, then you're constantly thinking about the Chase."

If Johnson finishes ninth or better in the remaining races, he will join Cale Yarborough (1976-78) as the only Cup drivers to have won three straight titles. But Johnson has been around long enough to know just how fast things can turn sour in NASCAR.

Someone reminded Johnson that Kyle Busch, who dominated the regular season with eight victories and was one of the favorites to win the title, started the 10-race Chase with three straight terrible finishes and was quickly an afterthought.

"Yeah, I look around and I see things that have gone on with other teams and I face that reality every time I get in the car," Johnson said. "And I know that anything can happen.

"And again, that's why we race as hard as we do and why we've always said we need to go out and focus on winning races. You don't know when or if the wheels are going to fall off, and what that will look like, and how many points you really will need to be the champion."

That's also the reason nights become particularly difficult for Johnson at this time of year.

"The hardest part is when you lay down in bed and try to go to sleep," he said. "There's nothing to keep you busy and you need sleep.

"I probably spend more time thinking about things before I fall asleep and when I wake up than I want to. It certainly cuts down on the sleep. You can't shut the brain off. The things I've been ignoring throughout the day, they are still there."

But Johnson has been through it twice before -- and that definitely helps.

"I found that this year I've done a better job of managing those thoughts," he said. "I almost have a mental checklist. ... I've looked at my race notes, looked at qualifying notes, covered (my) bases. Then I can sleep."


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