Edwards wanted pole, glad team is on familiar ground

FORT WORTH, Texas -- They're derisively called "cookie-cutter ovals," but to the folks at Roush Fenway Racing, intermediate tracks have been the team's bread and butter in 2008.

After their share of struggles at NASCAR's two short tracks, Roush Fenway teams were more than pleased to pick up Friday where they left off during qualifying for Sunday's Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

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Carl Edwards, who won at Fontana and Las Vegas and had a car capable of making it three in a row at Atlanta, qualified second -- and his lap of 189.487 mph was good enough until Dale Earnhardt Jr. used cooler track conditions to blow it away late in the session following a 72-minute delay for Michael McDowell's accident.

He was joined in the top 10 by teammates David Ragan (seventh) and Matt Kenseth (eighth). Greg Biffle will start 16th on Sunday, and Jamie McMurray qualified 32nd.

Edwards will start on the front row Sunday, but what he really wanted was a berth in next year's Budweiser Shootout and the shotgun the speedway gives to the pole-sitter.

"I didn't leave anything out there," Edwards said. "That was a good lap. I think I ran a 28.73 [second lap] or something like that in practice, a .74. To run a 28.49, for me, was really good, considering the track was essentially the same temperature, the sun was still high in the sky. So if I did it again, I don't think I could go any faster.

"That was a great lap for me. I really wanted that shotgun. That was a little painful to see Dale go that fast."

Edwards admits the team's success at tracks similar to Texas gives him a huge amount of confidence heading into Sunday's race.

"Right now, I feel like our cars are second to none," Edwards said. "So when we come to these places where the car is really huge, the car is an integral part of it more than other places -- I'm really, really happy to come to these tracks right now."

Ragan's run came on the heels of a fourth-place starting effort at Martinsville last weekend. He believes teamwork is playing a big factor in Roush Fenway's intermediate success. When one member of the team hits on a good setup, Ragan said, the other cars can be made to match it without much difficulty.

"We're pretty close to the same," Ragan said. "I don't know the particulars, but usually, in this new-style car, if you've got one car that's pretty fast and you get something that's similar setup-wise amongst all the cars, you've got something that's pretty good.

"We all work hard and we put our minds together after practice, after qualifying and we're trying to make this team stronger and I think we have, and I think that shows from qualifying down to the races."

At the time of McDowell's crash, Kenseth was second-fastest -- but he knew his time wouldn't hold up.

"The car didn't drive anything like it did in practice," Kenseth said. "It was just way too tight, for some reason. The speed doesn't look that bad, but I'm really disappointed in how it drove. I really thought we were going to have a shot to be a little bit quicker than that."