Edwards still clinging to title hopes in two series

Texas Motor Speedway has always been good to Carl Edwards. The Roush Fenway driver has a pair of Sprint Cup victories at the 1.5-mile Fort Worth racetrack, including one this past spring. He clinched a long-awaited first championship in what was when called the Busch Series on the wide, fast tri-oval one year ago. He's well on his way to amassing a closet full of boot-shaped trophies, cowboy hats, and six-shooters, the awards historically bestowed upon race winners in the Lone Star State.

Facts and figures

Get inside both championship races with the all the in-depth stats and information you need for this weekend's races at Texas.

• By the Numbers: Cup Series
• By the Numbers: Nationwide

These days, Edwards is in need of some more Texas luck, on two fronts. The Missouri native returns to the prairie clinging to second place in a pair of title hunts, and his time to make up the remaining ground rapidly running out. After sweeping events last weekend in Atlanta and Memphis, Edwards trails Jimmie Johnson by 183 points in the Sprint Cup championship race, and is 116 behind Clint Bowyer in the Nationwide Series. With only three events remaining on each circuit, Texas looms as a determining factor in Edwards' personal quest to sweep both championships in the same season.

"That is the ultimate goal, the last, I guess, four years or three years that we've been doing this that I've been running both series. It would just be a huge, huge accomplishment," he said. "You know, last week was a spectacular race for us. Everything went our way at Memphis in the Nationwide Series. And it's the first time in a long time we've picked up a bunch of points on Clint, so that was definitely a pleasant surprise. We didn't expect to go there and be able to close that many points on him. But I feel like if we do our jobs and we keep running like we're running, you know, then we're putting ourselves in the best position to, like I said, capitalize if Clint or Jimmie has any trouble."

On the Sprint Cup side, Texas might be Edwards' best chance to close the gap on Johnson, who is bidding to tie Cale Yarborough's 30-year-old record of three consecutive championships. His Roush Fenway team is always strong in Fort Worth, having won six of the 15 events contested there. And earlier this season, Edwards showed that he can outscore Johnson by more than 183 points in a three-race stretch, making up 206 in the spring at Richmond, Darlington, and Lowe's Motor Speedway.

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."