Edwards, the defending series champ, held off hard-charging Denny Hamlin at the finish line by a half-car length to earn his sixth Nationwide victory of the season in front of an estimated crowd of 37,500. Bowyer, who got caught up in an early wreck on a restart, recovered to salvage a fourth-place finish in the Hefty Odor Block 200 and limit the damage to his points lead.
Second in the standings, Edwards trimmed Bowyer’s lead from 91 points to 56, on a day that could have been much worse for the driver of the No. 2 Chevrolet.
Denny Hamlin, who came to the pits for new tires before a green-white-checkered-flag restart that took the event one lap past its scheduled distance of 200 laps, charged from fifth to second in the final two laps. Kevin Harvick finished third, followed by Bowyer, Kyle Busch and rookie Landon Cassill.
“If we run like we’ve been running ... we can close 56 points without Clint having trouble,” Edwards said.
But Bowyer can win the championship next week if he finishes eighth or better, regardless of what Edwards does.
“Man, I can’t handle this stuff anymore,” Bowyer said. “We’re still in it. We dodged a bullet, though. If you have a day like that and come back and finish fourth, that’s what wins championships,” Bowyer said. “You have to be able to bounce back. I thought we were done.”
Edwards refused to start thinking he had an advantage after Bowyer was stacked up on the sixth restart of the race. He immediately thought back to Friday night’s Truck Series race, when championship challenger Ron Hornaday wrecked on the first lap but still managed to close his deficit when points leader Johnny Benson later wrecked.
“I thought to myself, `as soon as I start relaxing here and counting points, it will be a wash,’” Edwards said. “I assumed with some damage, he was going to run worse than 10th. I didn’t relax, I knew the same thing could happen to us.”
“We’re just performing well,” Edwards said. “It’s a great feeling to go to the race track and know you can win. That’s one thing I thought about a lot with respect to the season — I feel like we’re going to be really tough for years to come.
“This success lately, when I’m not wrecked or having parts that fail, that makes me really excited for next year and the year after.”
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