FORT WORTH, Texas (AP)-Carl Edwards kept on charging Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway, and his persistence was rewarded.

Kind of like the 26-year-old wunderkind’s place in the Chase for the championship.

Edwards would not be denied, surging back from a late pit stop that dropped him to sixth place and passing Roush Racing teammate Mark Martin for the lead two laps from the end of the Dickies 500.

It was his second straight NASCAR Nextel Cup victory, thrusting the surprising Edwards into the battle for the series championship with two races remaining.

Tony Stewart had a solid if unspectacular day. The 2002 champion finished sixth and saw his lead in the Chase for the championship drop from 43 points to just 38 over Jimmie Johnson, who managed to pass Stewart two laps from the end and finish fifth.

Edwards, who now has four victories in his first full season in Cup racing, jumped from a tie for fourth, 107 points behind, to solo possession of third, 77 behind Stewart.

“Four wins, man, I can’t believe it,” said Edwards, who stuck a perfect landing on his now-traditional backflip from the window of his No. 99 Ford.

“We’re not going to change a thing,” the winner added. “We’re out to win this championship and we’ll do it by having fun. That’s way, if we lose it, we’re still going to have fun.”

Debris brought out the sixth and final caution flag of the 334-lap race on lap 319 and both Edwards, who was leading, and fifth-place Stewart pitted for right-side tires, while Martin and several other leaders stayed on track. Edwards was sixth when the green flag came back out on lap 323. He got caught in traffic for a while, but quickly moved to third, passed teammate Matt Kenseth for second on lap 330 and erased a 12-car lead by Martin before passing him on the outside coming off turn two on the 1.5-mile oval on lap 333. That wasn’t the only time Edwards mounted a charge, either. Edwards, who started 30th in the 43-car field, led a total of 82 laps – all in the second half of the race. He was out front on lap 290 when Greg Biffle spun and brought out a caution. On the ensuing pit stop, Stewart jumped from fourth to first and Edwards slipped to fifth. But Edwards was able to catch Stewart quickly under green, easily passing him for the lead on lap 310.

“My hat’s off to Mark Martin,” Edwards said. “He almost won this race. It was only the tires that beat him; he had the best car.

“The tires were the deal. If we could get the tires, if I didn’t hit the bumps wrong and shoot the car up the racetrack, I knew we could get him, the car was so fast.”

Martin wasn’t surprised that he got beat by Edwards, who he saw coming fast in his rearview mirror.

“Carl was spectacular,” Martin said. “It was a great call. The right car won the race.

“I thought for a while we were going to win it. I saw Matt in my mirrors and he was pretty far back. Then I saw Carl come around him and I thought, Uh oh, this could be bad.'”

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