Stewart, Edwards rally to keep alive title aspirations (cont'd)

Already feeling poorly from the pain of his broken foot, Edwards asked his crew for Advil before the first pit stop. Perhaps it was foreshadowing of the headaches the No. 99 would face all day. On that stop, the team realized the left end plate of Edwards' rear wing was damaged or missing, a major reason why he was having issues getting through traffic.

But while Edwards' team was busy trying to solve their issues, Stewart suddenly had problems of his own. On Lap 32, Logano checked up to avoid Bobby Labonte and Stewart drilled him in the back bumper, setting off a six-car, chain-reaction accident that required a red flag to clear the resulting debris. When the race resumed, both Edwards and Stewart ducked into the pits for repairs -- Stewart to get work done to the nose and right-rear quarter panel, Edwards to get a replacement end plate.

"I saw the piece of metal they put on the front and I don't know how big the hole is underneath it, but they said it was pretty good size," Stewart said. "I'm pretty proud of the effort they made to get it right. Once they got the hole patched up, it was good."

But that left Edwards 35th and Stewart 37th on a day when track position was a precious commodity. Both drivers made up some ground on the ensuing restart and long green-flag run -- Stewart worked his way back to 18th and Edwards advanced to 25th -- as the spotters preached patience on the radio.

"You've got to have patience here," Stewart said. "Four hundred miles is a long day here. I think that happened on Lap 32 and we had almost the whole day still left. We had to be smart.

"[Crew chief Darian Grubb] and those guys did an awesome job. They just kept chiseling away. Every time we could get a long run, we could make up ground. We weren't a short-run car. We needed 20 laps to get going every run. Halfway through a fuel run to the end, we could make up time on the field."

At the halfway point, Stewart had worked his way to just outside the top 10, but Edwards was still struggling. He nearly went a lap down to leader and eventual winner Jimmie Johnson before David Stremme hit the wall on Lap 273, bringing out the caution. And after pitting, he was 15th "and racing my guts out for it, too."

But Stewart's car began to respond, particularly on long runs, and he found himself in the top five for the first time all race with 60 laps remaining.

"It's just the setup," he said. "It's not that we try to make it that way, it's just the way it ends up. We'd rather have it fast on the front of the run so if you don't have those long runs, you're going to be quick every time."

When Sam Hornish Jr. spun and hit the wall with 31 laps to go, both Stewart and Edwards traded track position for fresh tires, a move that ultimately paid off handsomely. While Stewart worked his way back into the top 10, Edwards passed six cars in the final green-flag run.

"The strategy worked out," Edwards said.

However, given the choice, Edwards would have rather chosen to run up front all afternoon rather than the alternative with which he was faced.

"I like coming here and running top-two or -three," he said. "That's a lot more fun, a lot easier. ... I've got a lot of respect for all the guys I was racing with. They did a really good job. Everybody did a really good job, I thought."