JOLIET, Ill. -- Carl Edwards found himself in an unfamiliar location on the race track Saturday night -- up front.

After leading only four laps so far this season and posting just one top-five finish, Edwards has been left with more questions than answers as of late.

“

Second is bittersweet. You want to win, but we are obviously very happy with the result.

”

-- CARL EDWARDS

Granted, Roush Fenway Racing has three drivers in Chase position, but no one has posted a win. Whether it's the lack of speed they're hoping can be remedied by the new FR9 engine or simply falling behind the competition for various reasons, the Ford team hasn't had much about which to be optimistic. That is, until Saturday night at Chicagoland Speedway where Edwards posted a runner-up finish, his best of the year.

"Second is bittersweet," Edwards said. "You want to win, but we are obviously very happy with the result. If we run that well every week, we will win plenty of races. The key is that we ran so well. If we can continue that every week, we will be in good shape."

Edwards attributes part of the success to extra help from Richard Petty Motorsports driver Kasey Kahne, who evidently offered parts and pieces to the No. 99 with which Kahne had found success.

"That team has been helping us and this week they helped us quite a bit and it paid off," Edwards said. "Right up until the driver intros I was talking to Kasey about his car. He is a very even-keeled guy that has given me a lot of help. The parts and the help from Kenny Francis are probably what made the difference for us tonight."

The movement in the right direction is enough to have Edwards seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

"We are definitely on the horizon," said Edwards, who moved up two spots in the Cup Series point standings to 10th. "We haven't quite gone over, but I know we can run that well because we have done it and we did it tonight. We just have to figure out how to do it every week.

"I hope this is something we can go back on Monday and talk about why our car was so much different this week than it has been. We have some tracks like this coming up the rest of the season that will be really important tracks, so I hope we can apply this to those races."

David Ragan, who finished 12th Saturday night, sees the light as well.

"Yes, we see it; I don't know if everyone else sees it, but we do," he said. "Certainly our engineers and everybody back at the chassis shop and engine shop are working hard and we had the new Ford engine tonight. We're making progress, but at the same time, everyone else is also making progress. It was good to see some Fords up there in the top 10. We'll have the week off to think about this race and then we'll head to Indy to try and get one."

But not before trying to determine what went wrong in the engine of Greg Biffle's car. Learning why the engine failed will be high on team owner's Jack Roush's list before heading to Indianapolis Motor Speedway in two weeks.

"Jack Roush did come by and tell me that Greg [who finished 35th] had a failure and that we would have to think about what we are doing going forward," Edwards said. "The [Roush Yates Racing Engines] guys are very smart guys and hopefully we can keep that to a minimum. I have been taking for granted that our engines run so well and we won't have trouble. We can't have that kind of trouble if we are going to make the Chase."

Nevertheless, Edwards -- still reveling in the excitement of his strong finish -- said up front is where he wants to stay, because it's certainly a more enjoyable location on the race track.

"It is great to run up front. Guys are so nice and quiet up there in the front of the race. It is just fun. It is good to have a fast race car and it felt good to focus on little things like my line and how I was driving the car rather than how I was going to stay on the lead lap," he said. "Hopefully we can apply what we learned tonight and go forward and be faster more often because that is a lot more fun."