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.

”

-- 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."

Montoya looked like he had a Indianapolis victory in the bag before getting dinged with a pit road speeding violation. Still, even though he hasn't won, he still considers 2009 to be a successful season, because the team made major gains in performance. The goal now is to carry that momentum into 2010. He qualified 23rd, one position ahead of Edwards.

"Of course I want to win races and everything, but the way we ran over the past few years against this year, it's been incredible," Montoya said. "We've got to be able to match the performance [next season]. I think that's the key thing for the team for the future."

“

We have had a really good year. If we'd win one race, it would be a great year in my eyes, but we have one more shot at that here in Homestead.

”

-- RYAN NEWMAN

A win at Homestead would be the icing on the cake for Newman, who had no idea what to expect when he joined Stewart's fledgling operation last winter. At the time, Newman probably couldn't have imagined being a consistent contender, let alone making the Chase the first time out of the box. Add to that a seventh-place starting position Sunday.

"We have had a really good year," Newman said. "If we'd win one race, it would be a great year in my eyes, but we have one more shot at that here in Homestead. I feel that we'll have a competitive race car. It's the same car we had at Texas and Kansas."

Reed Sorenson, in his last start in the No. 43 Dodge, clipped the wall and spun sideways on his qualifying lap and will start 42nd. Mike Skinner, Max Papis and David Stremme also spun, and none made the field. However, Scott Speed, the last of the 48 cars to make an attempt, put himself on the front row alongside pole-sitter Jimmie Johnson.

So why is momentum so fleeting? And why does it seem that the harder you try to catch up, the farther behind you get?

"It probably has to do with the fact that you work so hard just to get to the next race and you have to be short-term thinking throughout the season," Edwards said. "The only time that you really get to step back and look at everything on the macro scale is at the end of the season, so that's probably why you see that."

So with one "last chance," what kind of emotions is Edwards feeling?

"I have mixed emotions about it," he said. "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 so I can look back and say, 'Hey, see that wasn't so bad.' But at the same time I'm really excited about getting this season done and starting next season and having a fresh start, and getting back on track and saying, 'All right, we can do this.'

"So I guess I'm just kind of middle of the road here, on the fence of whether I'm happy that this is the end of the season or not."