Carl Edwards thought he had a shot at victory on Sunday at the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard.

A seven lap shootout between Edwards and race winner, Jimmie Johnson, commenced. Johnson was fast off the restart and Edwards was coming strong towards the end of the race, but that was not good enough to get Edwards another 2008 Sprint Cup series victory.

"At the end, I actually believed that we were gonna be able to drive by Jimmie," he said. "All day, I'd been racing around him and I thought I was a little better than him, but he was holding back a little more than I thought he was, so on the restart Denny Hamlin was hanging back a little bit and I had no clue how good Denny was, so I thought, 'Of all things, I'm not gonna let Denny get by me here,' so I hung back a bit and got a run from Denny thinking I had seven laps and I could work Jimmie over, but I could never get to him.

"… But I truly believed we were gonna be able to win that race. I thought it was ours, but that's how it goes."

The second place finish to Johnson pushed Edwards down one spot in the standings to fifth, Johnson is fourth.

Despite a blown shot at a victory in one of NASCAR’s most prestigious events, Edwards had to think optimistically.

"I learned a long time ago not to let all your emotions hinge on the result, it has to be the performance," Edwards said. "… Today we did the very best we could. My pit crew – Jimmie had the first pit stall – we came in and we took two tires and we beat a lot of folks out. They did a great job, so I felt like we performed the best we could.

"If Jimmie hadn't had the pole and he was pitted down on the other end, we might be him and it might have been a different race, but they earned it and we just need to do a better job qualifying."