Edwards still clinging to title hopes in two series (cont'd)

Of course, Johnson is the defending champion in the Texas fall event. And he won the spring race at Phoenix International Raceway, where the circuit visits next week. At this point, there's only so much Edwards can do.

"The last couple of weeks, we have to go out and try to win all of these races, which we do normally," Edwards said. "But at this point, it's pretty much all or nothing. We just go out to win. If we can catch Jimmie on a day where he has some trouble or something happens, we have to be there getting the most amount of points we can so that we can capitalize on that."

On the Nationwide side, the deficit is a touch more manageable. Edwards' victory at Memphis, combined with a 16th-place finish by Bowyer, pulled the Roush driver to within 116 points, the closest he's been to the front since Michigan in August. Running both circuits full-time, he believes, is one reason why he's enjoyed what NASCAR is terming the most successful double-duty campaign ever. He has 12 combined wins -- seven in Sprint Cup, five in Nationwide -- and could become the first driver to post top-two finishes on both circuits in the same season. Even the split weekends haven't been much of a hurdle. Bobby East practiced and qualified Edwards' Nationwide car last weekend at Memphis, so the Sprint Cup regular could turn most of his focus to the big show in Atlanta.

He won both events, and came away convinced that his success from Saturday carried over to Sunday.

"You know, right off the bat, when I first started running both [series] in 2005, I was certain it had helped me. I mean, it was 100 percent beneficial for Sundays," he said. "As I've gone along, it's not been a benefit for the same reasons. You know, now it's different. It was that I was getting experience racing on the racetrack, racing around these guys. Now I feel like I have enough experience with that stuff that the benefit for me is just the competitive outlet on Saturdays. Getting the opportunity to go compete and have a good time with my guys on the Nationwide side, which we really have a great group and they're a lot of fun. This weekend in particular, winning that race at Memphis, I mean, I believe it put a little spring in my step and made Sunday go better. You know, if you wake up on Sunday morning with a smile from Saturday, it just seems like your day can't be worse because of that. So I think it's still a benefit, but now it's more that it's just fun, you know?"

But the reality is that Edwards could win out in both series and not catch Johnson, or Bowyer. He's still staring up at triple-digit deficits with just three weeks to go. He could emerge from his double-duty campaign of 2008 with two championships, one title -- or neither. Given all the work that's gone into it, all the shuffling in between garage areas, how frustrating might that prospect be?

"I'm not even going to answer that," he said. "We've got three weeks, three races in each series. And you know, I'll let you know how I feel after it's done. If we win, we win. If we don't, we don't. But right now my focus is going out here and doing the best we can to win."