Edwards wins, but Johnson rallies to widen points lead

HAMPTON, Ga. -- Even in victory, Carl Edwards looked deflated when he was told that Chase for the Sprint Cup leader Jimmie Johnson had finished second in Sunday's Pep Boys Auto 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

"Are you kidding me?" Edwards asked incredulously after taking the checkered flag 2.684 seconds ahead of Teflon Johnson, who recovered from an early pit-road speeding penalty to snag second place, thanks to a brilliant call for tires by Chad Knaus during the 10th and final caution of the race.

"Man, Jimmie's magic," added Edwards, who jumped two spots into second in the championship standings and trails Johnson by 183 points with three races left in the Chase. "We've got to win those next three and hope for the best."

Edwards took the lead from third-place finisher Denny Hamlin moments after a restart on Lap 310 of 325 on the 1.54-mile track. Hamlin spun his tires coming to the start/finish line allowing Edwards to pass to the outside through Turns 1 and 2 (watch video).

"Man, the second-to-last restart, Denny spun his tires and I spun mine a little bit and then he spun them again and I pushed his bumper and then he spun them again and he went to the inside," said Edwards, who won his seventh race of the year and the 14th of his career. "I thought inside, 'Man, here's my chance to get to the outside.'

"I really didn't think he was going to spin them that second time. I thought I was going to bump him and he was going to keep on going and I figured I'd follow him for a while, but it just worked out great."

Edwards held the lead through a caution for debris in Turn 2 on Lap 312, but Johnson gave up three positions when Knaus called him to pit road for new tires on Lap 314. Johnson restarted 11th on Lap 318, but by the end of that circuit, he had passed four cars.

Working his way toward the front, Johnson passed Hamlin for second through the third turn on the final lap to cut his points loss to Edwards to a minimum.

Matt Kenseth, who led a race-high 128 laps, finished fourth, followed by Kyle Busch and his brother, Kurt. Jamie McMurray was seventh, David Ragan eighth, Jeff Gordon ninth and Greg Biffle 10th.

Biffle overcame an ill-handling car to claim that 10th position and is third in the Chase standings -- now 185 points behind Johnson.

It was Johnson's resilience that enabled him to take another significant step toward a third consecutive championship. On Lap 89, Johnson smoked his tires entering pit road and was nailed with a speeding penalty. The punishment was a "pass-through" down pit road that dropped him to 30th in the running order, one lap down.

By the time the field restarted on Lap 115, after a caution for debris in Turn 2, Johnson was 20th, the first car one lap down. When caution flew again on Lap 131 for Kasey Kahne's spin off Turn 4, Johnson got a free pass to the lead lap as the "Lucky Dog" and spent the rest of the race using his talents and Knaus' strategy to claim the runner-up spot.

"Having those new tires versus those other guys, that was a great call," Johnson said. "It was a risky call, but that shows you how Chad is, that we're here to race."

Notes: Dale Earnhardt Jr. spent most of the afternoon in the top 10 but slipped to 11th at the finish. A collision on pit road did more damage to Earnhardt's Chevrolet than it did to Edwards' Ford Kurt Busch's Dodge. The three cars were exiting pit road under caution on Lap 290, when Earnhardt was sandwiched between Busch and Edwards. "We got banged around on pit road, man," Earnhardt said after the race. "The No. 2 [Busch] had somebody on the outside of him, and the No. 99 [Edwards] was coming out of his stall. I think that hurt probably the worst and knocked the toe [tire angle] around. The fender is all tore up on it. I am just frustrated. We should have run sixth or seventh there. We work too hard to run like that, but I don't know what we could have done differently. I couldn't anticipate what was going to happen on pit road or do anything different." ... Edwards completed a weekend double at two tracks, having won Saturday's Nationwide Series race at Memphis. ... Jeff Burton was one of the victims of a five-car accident on Lap 303 (watch video) and came home 18th, the last car on the lead lap. He's now fourth in points, trailing Johnson by 218. ... NASCAR confiscated the rear-end housing of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driven by Kyle Busch and will take it to its Research & Development center in Concord, N.C., to check its measurements. NASCAR officials said, however, they do not anticipate a problem.

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• Video: Edwards | Johnson | Hamlin