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For Carl Edwards, the question was, "Would he do it to me?" The answer was simple, "he had." With thirty laps remaining in Saturday nights Sharpie 500, Edwards was charging off the final restart of the race and set his sights on Kyle Busch, although his view had not changed much of the race. Busch took the lead on Lap 55 and refused to give it up.
Better on the short runs, Edwards was all over the rear end of Busch's No. 18 Toyota. Heading into Turn 1, Edwards stuck a nose under the points leader and bumped him up the track. Busch gathered it up and got back at Edwards, but wound up fighting harder to hold off teammate Denny Hamlin than mounting a charge against the No. 99 Ford Fusion. Bumping his way past Busch, Edwards went on to score his sixth win of 2008. During the cool down lap, Busch pulled aside Edwards, running him up the track and hitting him in the door, obviously upset with the pass for the lead. Edwards returned the favor by turning down on Busch, spinning him around before driving off for his signature back flip. This win marks the second win in a row for the Roush Fenway Racing driver, his ninth win on concrete, his second back-to-back win of the year and his second win in the Sharpie 500 - in a row. Despite the post-race altercation, Edwards was all smiles in Victory Lane, offering no remorse, "That's one of those deals where I couldn't get by him and I couldn't get by him and I just had to ask myself would he do it to me, and he has before. That's just how it goes." "Man that was exciting," Edwards added. "They keep talking about rivalries and we might have one now." "I kind of just ran into him," Edwards said of the pass for the lead. "That's what happened. It's too bad we tore up the car a little bit after the race, but I guess he wasn't happy about it and I can understand. But in the back of my mind all I could think about was Richmond in a Nationwide race when he was trying to get through the field and he pile drove me. That's just the way it is. It's just racing. I have a lot of respect for the guy and he was real fast, but we can't give up points when they're right there for us to take." Busch's Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin rebounded after a disappointing finish last week at Michigan to come home third. The finish boosted Hamlin one spot in the series standings to 11th and Hamlin knows the pressure is still on. "There still an edge," Hamlin pointed out. "It just not as sharp." Chase contenders Kevin Harvick and Jeff Gordon rounded out the top-5, while Ryan Newman, Clint Bowyer, Tony Stewart, Matt Kenseth and David Ragan made up the rest of the top-10. While the night was good for most drivers chasing the Chase, Kasey Kahne had a poor finish for the second weekend in a row after getting caught up in Bristol's version of the Big One.
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