FONTANA, Calif. -- For the first time since he fractured his foot playing Frisbee six weeks ago, Carl Edwards is walking without the aid of crutches. Now he's hoping a trip to California will help straighten out his somewhat hobbled championship hopes.

Winless in 2009 after winning nine times last season, Edwards sorely needs a victory, and perhaps Auto Club Speedway is his best chance. In 10 starts at Fontana, he's finished outside of the top 10 only once -- and took home the winner's trophy in the rain-delayed 2008 spring race.

Even though he's 10th in the standings, 165 points behind Mark Martin, Edwards remains confident heading into Sunday's Pepsi 500.

"You come to every race to win, and until it's a mathematical impossibility, we fight for the championship," Edwards said Friday. "Yes, I'd love to be leading Jimmie Johnson and Mark Martin by 165 points. I guess in 2006 at this point, Jimmie was the exact number behind the leader that we are, and somehow he managed to pull it off.

"We're the same team that won more races and scored more points than anyone else last season, so I still hang on to the fact that we can do it. We just have to execute it. We have to go put our flag out there."

Based on recent races here, Johnson and Edwards would have to be considered the odds-on favorites. However, Denny Hamlin certainly showed Friday that he should be mentioned in the same sentence as those two after posting a qualifying lap of 183.870 mph, putting him on the pole for Sunday's race. In all, Chase contenders made up seven of the top 11 positions, including Johnson in third and Edwards in 11th.

On the other hand, drivers like Brian Vickers (32nd) and Ryan Newman (36th) will find themselves deep in traffic at the start. Matt Kenseth has consistently proven that's not a huge handicap, since his three victories came from starting positions of 31st, 25th and 24th.

"We didn't quite get the front end just right," Edwards said. "With one more crack at it, I think we could have been really good, but that's OK. Hopefully, that'll be in the top half of the field. And it's a long race. If we have a good race car, we should be able to be up there, no problem."

Still, Edwards said things don't always go according to plan.

"The thing about racing is that anything can happen -- witness these crutches I've been walking around on for the last month," Edwards said. "You just never know what can happen -- on the race track, off the race track -- so because of that we've just got to go out there and do what Jack [Roush] said: focus, dig hard, try to win the championship and take whatever we can get.

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Carl Edwards talks about what he may do with the crutches he no longer needs to get around.

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"If Jimmie goes out and wins this weekend, then that's what happens, but if he goes and has a terrible week, you have to be out there gaining every point you can to capitalize. We've got seven races left, a lot can happen."

For the most part, 2-mile Auto Club Speedway lends itself to long green-flag runs, the result being a stringing out of the field around the entire track, with few swaps for position. Edwards said that's a byproduct of two things: the current aerodynamics of the cars and the closeness of the competition.

"If you don't have downforce, then no one can take downforce away by being in front of you," Edwards said. "I think they made a good step toward that by changing the cars, they have a little less downforce than what they used to have, but at the same time, the cars became closer competitively. So, a guy can't overcome that deficit with a better car because the better car only means a hundredth or two-hundredths of a second sometimes.

"So, to me, I think that we'd be just fine with no downforce or 100 pounds of downforce or whatever keeps lift from happening, we could rely on the driver's foot and the tires and mechanical grip and things like that to race these cars. I think the closer we get to that, the better off the racing will be."

With two viable ways to get track position -- make it up with pit strategy or be braver than the other guys on double-file restarts -- Edwards said the intensity of level following cautions flags is as high as he's seen it in his five years in the series.

"If you're running up front, it's a little bit nerve-wracking because it's chaotic, there's crazy things going on, people are running into each other and sliding up the race track three-, four-wide," Edwards said. "I keep saying it but I think we have yet to see one of these restarts turn into a full-on disaster. But, the potential is there and that's what makes it so exciting to watch.

"So from a strategy standpoint, the short run becomes really important, because if you're bad, you get passed by twice as many cars. If you're good, you can pass twice as many. But it's just crazy. Last week, there were points in those restarts where I thought, 'Well, we're all getting ready to wreck,' and guys would save it and keep going. That's exciting for the fans."

So what happened to the crutches Edwards has been sporting since Atlanta?

"I didn't even bring them [to California]," he said. "I meant to bring them but I left them, and I panicked this morning. I said, 'Man, I don't even have them,' but I remembered that NASCAR'S medical folks have a set they've been carrying around for me in case I wrecked so I don't have to stand there on one foot -- I can at least crutch to the ambulance. So, no, I don't have them. I'm committed."

He's hoping for a similar commitment on the track Sunday.