FORT WORTH, Texas -- There's no questioning Carl Edwards' ability behind the wheel of a race car.

But in the aftermath of an agonizing defeat on pit road Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway that led to a 10th-place finish in the Samsung 500, Edwards continued to massage his skill as a team builder.

"You did a good job getting us in position to take the lead," Edwards told his crew on his cool-down lap. "But remember, that car sitting in Victory Lane, we drove right by."

Those carefully chosen syllables, as well as Edwards' words to his crew over their radio network in the closing stages may gain weight if their losing skein, which reached seven races after Sunday's misfortune, continues. That comes into sharper focus when compared to Edwards' winning ratio a year ago, when he and his crew won nine times, or a victory every four races.

"A win's a win, and you just can't give 'em away like that -- it's just not good," Edwards said. "I can't sit here and say we would have won -- but damn, we wouldn't have finished 10th."

Race winner Jeff Gordon's post-race analysis didn't help, after the No. 99 Roush Fenway Racing Ford crew had previously put Edwards in position to possibly win. The fact is, in the final 26 laps, Edwards could only gain one spot and Gordon said if he hadn't come out first, he couldn't have won.

"Races are won a lot of different ways," Gordon said. "Sometimes the fastest car wins and sometimes the best pit crew gets the win. You never know how the results would have changed had Carl not had his problems. All I know is our team had a great pit stop [and] we won the race.

"That's because we got out front and we had a fast car the first 10, 12 laps of that run."

And that's probably a fact -- as he sat in his car waiting for the final restart -- Edwards knew as much as Gordon did. (Continued)