HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- After winning last year's Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Carl Edwards could never have expected to find Victory Lane so elusive since. But here it is, the season finale, and Edwards, who won nine times last season, knows Sunday's race will be "our last shot" for win No. 1.

“

We've had a long season and everything, but I don't want it to be over. I want to go have some more opportunities to win and get it back on track.

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-- CARL EDWARDS

The same could be said for Roush Fenway Racing teammate Greg Biffle, who has won at least one Cup race in each of the past six seasons. Or for Ryan Newman, Juan Montoya, Dale Earnhardt Jr. or all four Richard Childress Racing drivers, none of which has visited Victory Lane in 2009.

All share the stigma of being winless, but not all share the same disappointment. While Edwards and Biffle certainly expected better results, Newman and Montoya still consider this season a success.

If Edwards is going to break into the win column, he'll have to do it from the middle of the pack. He qualified 24th-quickest of the 48 cars vying for the 43-car field.

"If I look at last season, a year ago I was sitting here looking forward to this season thinking, 'All right, we're gonna go win nine or 10 races. We're gonna dominate the championship. That's the plan,'" Edwards said. "That's still the plan for next year, it's just that things come and go so easily. It's very tough to make a plan for your results."

Biffle has won three times at Homestead, but 2009 has been a season of near-misses. He'll roll off eighth Sunday.

"It makes me hurt to think about how many we've come close to," Biffle said. "Running out of gas at Michigan. Stopping on the air hose at California even though we were still in the pit box. Kansas, we took four tires instead of two and [Tony Stewart] beat us.

"It's been very difficult. But they're not easy to win, either, and it would be very disappointing to go a season without winning a race since I've been able to win every year. I don't think there's a driver in our sport that's ever done that to date. I've got one chance left, and that's here on Sunday." (Continued)