Edwards cruises at Texas with third win of season

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Carl Edwards' signature backflip marked more than his third dominating performance of the 2008 Sprint Cup season.

In a green-white-checkered-flag finish that took Sunday's Samsung 500 five laps beyond its scheduled distance of 334 laps, Edwards held off Jimmie Johnson at Texas Motor Speedway to win his third race of the season and the 10th of his career (watch video).

Edwards, who led a race-high 123 laps, crossed the finish line .399 seconds ahead of the two-time defending Cup champion. Kyle Busch ran third, followed by Ryan Newman and Denny Hamlin. Points leader Jeff Burton, Tony Stewart, Mark Martin, Matt Kenseth and Clint Bowyer completed the top 10.

Want more? Get inside the walls of Roush Fenway Racing.

• More

Four races after incurring a 100-point penalty for an oil tank cover violation discovered after his win at Las Vegas, Edwards climbed back into the top 12 in the driver championship points. Edwards is 10th, 184 points behind Burton.

"The tires were just slippery enough that the car was fun to drive," said Edwards, who led the field to a single-file restart on Lap 338 after Martin Truex Jr.'s blown engine dropped oil on the track to bring out the sixth and final caution of the race on Lap 330.

"I was just about 25 percent throttle on the restart, and I still spun my tires," Edwards said. "I think Jimmie did a little, too, and that helped. That restart might not be exciting to the people watching, but it was really exciting in the car, spinning the tires and trying to hold off Jimmie."

Edwards' victory kept Hendrick Motorsports out of Victory Lane for the seventh consecutive race this season, despite vast improvement in Johnson's intermediate speedway program.

"On the restart, he [Edwards] spun his tires a little bit," Johnson said. "I thought about maybe trying the outside line through [Turns] 1 and 2, but with all the oil-dry up there, it wouldn't have been a very good idea. Then he got away from us a little bit. ... He was better than us at the end there, I think."

In the last half of the race, Edwards was decidedly better than everyone else. He took the green flag in second position for a restart on Lap 181; on Lap 215 he passed Busch for the lead to the outside in Turn 2. After Johnson moved into second on Lap 220, Edwards expanded his advantage over the No. 48 Chevrolet to 9.105 seconds by Lap 280, before NASCAR threw a caution for debris on Lap 294.

After a restart on Lap 300, Edwards drove his No. 99 Roush Fenway Racing Ford to a lead of nearly two seconds before Truex's blown motor caused the final caution.

The penalty to Edwards' team for the Las Vegas infraction also carried a six-race suspension for crew chief Bob Osborne that ends after Talladega later this month.

"Bob's at home watching on TV, and at least he can't get suspended again," Edwards quipped.

Notes: For the first third of the race, Jeff Gordon fought an ill-handling car until he lost control and slammed the Turn 4 wall on Lap 109. Gordon returned to the track briefly but retired in 43rd position after completing 124 laps. The last-place finish dropped him to 14th in the Cup standings. The only other time in his career Gordon finished 43rd was also at Texas, when on March 28, 1999, he suffered one of the most vicious crashes of his career (read more). ... Pole-sitter Dale Earnhardt Jr. struggled with handling problems after leading 31 laps early and finished 12th, one lap down. ... For the first time since September 2006 at Dover, only one Hendrick car finished on the lead lap. ... During post-race inspection, the right-rear of Newman's No. 12 Dodge was found to be too high. If penalties are forthcoming, it will be announced later this week.