After leading 199 laps, it looked as if Carl Edwards' hopes to repeat history and capture the win in Sunday's Dickies 500 had gone out the window. Pitting under caution on Lap 264, crew chief Bob Osborne called for four tires while others opted for two. Edwards restarted the race in seventh.

With laps winding down and teams looking to their fuel gauges, Osborne told his driver to conserve fuel and hope for the best. Running around at half throttle while others hit pit road, Edwards assumed the lead and began counting laps.

"We were very close," Osborne explained after climbing down for the pit box. "We got great fuel mileage. These Roush-Yates engines are amazing, amazing power, amazing fuel mileage. Nothing like a Ford engine, that's for sure. Couldn't believe it. Can't believe this thing came down to fuel mileage, we led a lot of laps had a great time, got four tires and then thought we blew it."

Retaking the lead with thirteen laps to go, Edwards was able to make it to the end and coast to his second win in a row. The win brought Edwards closer to Johnson's points lead, cutting it down to 106 points.

"I don't know what to say," Edwards said after thanking his sponsors and the fans in Victory Lane. "We took off there for a while, we made probably the wrong call getting four tires, but Bob came up with a way to win this that anyway."

"First Bob said, 'We're two-tenths of a lap short, so conserve.' Then he came back and said, 'No, we're four laps short, just go real hard and we'll pit.' Then he came back again and said, 'We'll conserve.' So just by all that I kind of knew that he wasn't too sure about it, but I'm really glad it worked out," Edwards went on to say. "It's unreal. It's a great day. The fans are awesome. My guys are awesome. We're closing ground on Jimmie, that's cool."

On a day where Edwards took the win and led the most laps, Johnson's pursuit of his third consecutive title took a bit of a hit in Texas. The driver of the No. 48 Lowe's Kobalt Chevrolet struggled with the handling of his car from the drop of the green flag and went a lap down to Edwards by Lap 94.

While he was able to overcome going a lap down in Atlanta last week, with Edwards setting a torrid pace Johnson was never able to put himself in position for the free pass. By the end of the evening, Johnson was able to make it to 15th, two laps down.

"It's like getting kicked in the balls over and over," Johnson said of his day. "That sucked. First three runs we were just terrible. After that we got the car better and I ran in the top four, top six throughout the rest of the race, but just never had a chance to get a lap back. We were close a couple times, maybe a car or two away. We just got off at the start of the race, with all the green flag running, we just couldn't get back on a lead lap. But we made the car better and ran well. Just don't have the finish to show for it."

Also gambling on gas, Johnson's teammate Jeff Gordon tied his career-best finish at the Texas Motor Speedway after starting the race from the pole. Leading fifteen laps on the day, Gordon quickly lost the handling of his No. 24 DuPont/Nicorette Chevrolet and went a lap down to the leaders. Getting the free pass late in the race, Gordon was able to coast around under caution for a few extra laps, allowing crew chief Steve Letarte to make the gamble.

"What a crazy day for the DuPont/Nicorette Chevrolet," Gordon explained. "We struggled.  We were good when we were out front at the beginning, fell back to fifth and we just trying to free it up through the middle and one time we just got it too loose and lost all the track position, lost a lap, had to fight our way back to get on the lead lap. I give them a lot of credit for being patient with everything all day."

Continuing to show his strength late in the season, Roush Fenway Racing's Jamie McMurray was able to come home with a season-best third-place finish. Leading fifty-six laps on the day, McMurray would have been in the catbird seat had Edwards' and Gordon's gamble had not paid off. The driver of the No. 26 Crown Royal Ford came to pit road for the last time on Lap 320 for two tires and fuel and was the first car in line had the No. 99 and No. 24 ran out before the checkered flag fell.

"Larry [Carter] just made a great call to put two tires on with 70 laps to go and we ran that out and put two more tires on, but some of those guys were able to make it on fuel, but, overall, that was cool to get the lead that way and it's pretty exciting to have the possibility to win, so the guys did a really good job in the pits all night," McMurray said after climbing from his car. "Larry and Derek [Stamets] made really good adjustments, so these 500 mile races are really long and it's pretty easy to screw your car up when you have 500 miles, so they did a nice job tonight."

McMurray's Roush Fenway Racing teammate, Greg Biffle, was able to come home with a fifth-place finish, giving team owner Jack Roush three cars in the top-5 and all five cars in the top-11. Third in points, Biffle was able to earn five bonus points for leading a lap and is now trailing Johnson by 143 points.

"It turned into a fuel mileage race and it's unfortunate," Biffle explained. "We had a pretty good car at the end and so did the 26, but fuel mileage won this thing and that was kind of unusual. I can't quite figure out how my teammate can go eight laps more than I can, either, so we'll just have to go back and do our homework and see what he's got that we don't have underneath the hood, I guess.

"If they were the same, they would have got the same mileage," Biffle added. "So if they're the same, you get the same mileage. If they're not the same, you don't get the same mileage, so I don't know what is different. They may have the same jetting and what-not, but, in any event, I'm not complaining. We got a top five here and gained points on the 48. The 99 is gambling. If the 99 would have run out, we would have gained on everybody, so we're pretty excited about that."

With just two races remaining in the 2008 season, Edwards is doing all he can to make this year's championship battle just that, a battle. No driver has overcome a deficit as large as Edwards' with just two races remaining, but that is not going to stop Edwards from trying. Next week it is off to the Phoenix International Raceway for the Checker O'Reilly Auto Parts 500 presented by Pennzoil.