After a frustrating weekend at Lowe's Motor Speedway, Carl Edwards says he has never been so excited to go to Martinsville. The driver of the No. 99 Roush Fenway Racing Ford Fusion entered the weekend second in the standings and the center of attention.

An avoidable mistake by Edwards at Talladega last weekend triggered a massive pile-up that took out five Chase contenders, including himself. The Missouri-native took the blame for the incident, but that didn't cool the temper of fellow Chaser Kevin Harvick.

Caught up in the incident at Talladega, Harvick had some harsh words about Edwards after climbing from his wrecked race car, "It looked like the No. 99 should have drafted all day because obviously he wasn't ready to start racing there until the end and made a mistake and tore up most of the field."

Harvick's remarks apparently got under the skin of Edwards, who confronted the Richard Childress Racing driver Friday afternoon at Lowe's. The two Chase drivers had a heated argument that quickly turned into a shoving match.

Trying to put all of that behind him, Edwards started Saturday night's Bank of America 500 from the outside of row one. Once the race got under way, Edwards definitely put the Talladega mishap and the Harvick pushing and shoving incident behind him to focus on an entirely new set of problems.

Just over fifty laps into the race, Edwards radioed crew chief Bob Osborne complaining of a vibration. One lap later, on Lap 52, Edwards gave up the second-spot to hit pit road for two right-side tires. As Edwards made his way off pit road, A.J. Allmendinger brought out the second caution of the evening. NASCAR officials claimed the No. 99 did not beat leader Jimmie Johnson off pit road and was therefore a lap down - much to the displeasure of Bob Osborne.

The third caution of the day came out just ten laps later, on Lap 63. Instead of being a good break for the Roush Fenway Racing driver, this caution flag period spelled trouble. Under the caution, Edwards? No. 99 lost its spark and shut off. Coasting around on the apron, Edwards could do nothing to re-fire the engine.

On Lap 67, Edwards was pushed to his pit stall by a tow truck as his crew feverously went to work. The team went under the hood and in through the right side window to check the ignition system as the field lined up to restart. Once the race restarted on Lap 70, Edwards was still on pit road with the engine shut off. Finally on Lap 84, the team had completed switching both ignition boxes and sent Edwards back on track. The driver second in points going into Saturday night's race was now sixteen laps down and running in the 39th spot.

"We changed all the ignition stuff and the car worked again, so you never know what it could be there," a disappointed Edwards explained. "It's pretty amazing, we have two pretty independent ignition systems and, for some reason they both quit. I just can't believe it. We fight back, though. We've got a great team and we've just got to get everything we can. We've got five more races."

When the night was all said and done, Edwards was able to gain six spots and come home with a 33rd-place finish. Too make matters worse, Edwards failed to lead a lap Saturday night and missed out on an extra five points.

This disappointing finish, coupled with his 29th-place finish the week before at Talladega, has dropped Edwards to fourth in the series standings. With five more races until a champion is crowned for the 2008 season, Edwards now finds himself 168 points out of the lead.

"I think everybody understands that you can lose a ton of points - 200 or 300 in a space of a few weeks - and we all know that can happen," Edwards went on to say. "This thing is far from over. We don't ever give up, that's for sure, but we needed to do better than this."

Edwards is not out of this Chase by any means. Despite two bad finishes at Talladega and this weekend at Lowe's, Edwards will definitely be a threat over the next five weeks. This team has dug itself a bit of a whole, but will fight and claw to climb out as the series heads to Martinsville, Atlanta, Texas, Phoenix and then to Homestead. With a little luck on their side and a bit of bad luck on the side of those around them in the Chase, the No. 99 team could be in the thick of it once the title is decided.