CONCORD, N.C. -- Once Carl Edwards lost a lap after getting caught on pit road during a caution, he radioed his team to boost their spirits.

"All right guys, here we go. We never give up. That's what we do," Edwards told his crew.

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But before he could get back to green-flag racing, his No. 99 Ford suffered an electrical malfunction inside the ignition box and quit running.

"It's pretty amazing, we have two pretty much independent ignition systems and for some reason they both quit," said Edwards, who after repairing the car went into survival mode, 16 laps down, and finished 33rd in Saturday night's Bank of America 500.

The Roush-Fenway Racing team arrived at Lowe's Motor Speedway second in the standings but left the North Carolina track fourth.

They weren't the only team in the Chase to find trouble.

The race was slightly reminiscent of last week's event at Talladega, only this time it wasn't Edwards' fault. Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Matt Kenseth both lost ground in the race for the championship.

Seemingly from the start of the race, Earnhardt was struggling with his No. 88 Chevrolet.

"As soon as I get off the gas it yanks sideways," Earnhardt radioed to his crew early in the night.

And in the midst of him communicating additional problems to his crew, Earnhardt's right-front tire blew with no warning and sent him into the Turn 3 wall.

"I wasn't running real hard at all," he said. "I was actually taking it pretty easy. It just popped. I don't know. There had been a couple of wrecks in that corner. No telling what might have been laying under there.

"We had a real good car and I was just taking it easy, real easy. We ran real, real hard here in the spring and worked our car too hard. I was just going to take care of the racecar. That was what I was trying to do."

Earnhardt said he can't seem to escape his bad luck of late.

"I am just ready to shake it," he said.

After repairing his No. 88 Chevrolet, Earnhardt returned to the track on Lap 150 -- 45 laps down -- and finished the night in 36th place.

As for Kenseth, the look on his face leaving the infield care center was similar to the one he wore in Talladega -- grim.

For the second week in a row, the No. 17 Ford was caught up in a multi-car wreck. This time the melee happened on Lap 194 in Turn 4 starting with Paul Menard. Kenseth slowed for the wreck between Menard, Bill Elliott and Tony Raines and got ran over by Travis Kvapil.

"We really struggled with our Fusion, but Chip [Bolin, crew chief] made a lot of really good adjustments," Kenseth said. "We actually had it a lot better there. I think we were probably close to a top-10 car. It's nowhere where we want to be, but it was getting better. I was just slowing up for the accident and got run over."

As for his Chase campaign, Kenseth said it has "borderlined on miserable" after dropping two positions to 11th in the standings.

"There have been a couple of bright spots, but even when things go right they go wrong," he said. "At Kansas we had a really good car, got wrecked there. Got wrecked last weekend with a really good car and then couldn't really do a lot about any of that stuff, I don't think. It's just been one of those months. Hopefully, it will get better."

Chase drivers Tony Stewart, who finished 11th, and Kyle Busch, who was fourth, both served pass-through penalties Saturday night after NASCAR officials caught them speeding entering pit road.

It was Stewart's third speeding violation of the Chase. The No. 20 was issued a speeding penalty at Kansas Speedway as well as New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Still, one might say Stewart's pit-road violations pale in comparison to Edwards' storm of recent issues.

From wrecking his teammates in Talladega to getting wrapped up in a physical altercation with another competitor this week and finally his 33rd-place finish at LMS, Edwards admits he has made some bad decisions and allowed his critics to upset him.

"It's not been a good seven days," he said. "I truly believe that the only place I failed this week was to let things get to me. You can't control anything but your attitude and I let myself down a little bit this week on that. I have to work on that. [Saturday] was another good test. You have to focus and stay positive, because the worst thing you can do is get down."

What keeps Edwards from unraveling is crew chief Bob Osborne.

Once the No. 99 returned to the track after ignition repairs and also a bobble on pit road, Osborne advised his driver, no longer in contention for the win, to merely "survive."

"The big thing here is to survive, stay out of all the trouble and I hate to say this but hopefully our competitors will struggle like we have," Osborne told his driver.

"It ain't pretty, but it's what we've got," replied Edwards. "This has not been a good week, so we'll just mark this one off the calendar and get better."

"That's a big 10-4 bud; attitude is everything," Osborne said.

Conversations and rapport like that is what Edwards relies on inside the car.

"Bob is great for a lot of reasons," Edwards said. "I know he would stand behind me no matter what and that means the world to me."

Heading to Martinsville next week, Edwards is 168 points away from Chase leader Jimmie Johnson.

"This thing is far from over, but we need to do better than this. Seems like the more I do or say this week the worse off I am," he said. "So I've never been more excited to race in Martinsville in my life."