LONG POND, Pa. -- The good, the bad and the ugly: That was one way to describe the Sprint Cup Series points battle after Sunday's Pocono 500 produced quite a shakeup in the standings.

Carl Edwards, who was in danger of dropping out of the top 12, virtually swapped positions with Denny Hamlin, who tanked five spots after his fuel pump cable broke early in the race at Pocono Raceway.

Pocono 500

Results

Pos.	Driver	Make
1.	Tony Stewart	Chevrolet
2.	Carl Edwards	Ford
3.	David Reutimann	Toyota
4.	Jeff Gordon	Chevrolet
5.	Ryan Newman	Chevrolet
6.	Marcos Ambrose	Toyota
7.	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet
8.	Juan Montoya	Chevrolet
9.	Jeff Burton	Chevrolet
10.	Sam Hornish Jr.	Dodge

Results | Laps | Photos | Rewind

Kyle Busch's Pocono experience didn't change much from last season. He fell three spots because the team couldn't get the car handling properly and they were bitten by fuel mileage. Past winner Kurt Busch lost ground after a 37th-place finish due to a broken water pump.

"It was just a bad day for our Miller Lite Dodge team, a bad day in this race and bad for the big picture, too," Kurt Busch said. "We fought a tight condition for most of the first half of the race."

A spring rubber popped out of the right-rear of Busch's No. 2 machine and the crew managed to fix the problem. But then on Lap 129, things got worse.

"I heard something just blow off, a loud poof," he said. "I hit pit road immediately. It was a broken water pump and we sheered the pulley. We had to go to the garage to fix it and changed a shock while there."

Busch returned to the track but said it was "too little too late."

Hamlin's No. 11 Camry, which is now only a point from falling outside the top 12, finished behind Busch in 38th place, and crew chief Mike Ford said the fuel pump cable breaking was unacceptable.

"It's not the first time we've had fuel issues across all three cars," he said. "It's just plain unacceptable and it should never happen. We had a fuel pump lock up and that broke a couple of other pieces in the system. It's one of those things that are difficult to troubleshoot in a short amount of time. What started it was having the fuel pump lock up. It was just a parts failure."

Kyle Busch, who wound up 22nd, was three laps short on fuel nearing the end of the race. Crew chief Steve Addington said he and the team have a lot of work to do before returning to Pocono's triangle-shaped track in August.

"The way we are sitting here in the points, 60 or 80 from being out of the top 12 -- so I played it safe," Addington explained. "We didn't figure that a lot of those guys could make it all the way to the end so we tried to do a short-pit deal, put tires on it and try to make up some time."

The team made up time, but so did the competition.

"Those guys made it and I don't know how," Addington added. "Our teammate was getting better fuel mileage than us and he ran out in Turn 3. We wouldn't have made it even if we tried to back it down. We did the right thing -- we finished on the lead lap. It's not a proud day for us, for sure."

On the brighter side of the point standings shuffle, Edwards soared five spots to sixth place, David Reutimann climbed back into the top 12 with his two-spot gain, and Greg Biffle moved up to seventh after gaining two spots as well.

But it was Ryan Newman's hard-fought battle overcoming a bad spark plug that elicited the most praise. Though he only moved up one spot to fourth in the standings, he is proving to be a permanent fixture in the top five week in and week out.

"It's a group effort and you're seeing the results," said Newman, whose car owner/teammate, Tony Stewart, won the race. "When you get both cars in the top five it is not by luck."

Newman said a lot of the credit for his finish in Sunday's race goes to the pit crew.

"The guys did a great job on pit road getting everything changed," Newman said. "We had a spark plug problem and changed it after we changed the distributor cap and wires. We were trying to troubleshoot. I felt like I was driving an old car or something and troubleshooting at the same time."

The team gambled on fuel at the end, but it paid off and they gained a couple of spots to finish fifth in Sunday's race.