Carl Edwards may be racking up the NASCAR Busch Series win in 2007, but he had not won a Nextel Cup event for over a year before triumphing in the Citizens Bank 400 at Michigan International Speedway on Sunday.
Some 52 races had been run since the Office Depot Ford driver last tasted Victory Lane, at Texas in November 2005, and he was made to work for his fifth career Cup win after rising star Martin Truex Jr pushed him all the way to the line in round 15 of the season. The success also ended a lengthy drought for the Blue Oval, which has managed just one other win this season - courtesy of Roush Racing team-mate Matt Kenseth at Fontana in round two. Ironically, Edwards crashed out of Saturday's Busch Series event...
Edwards, who started twelfth, had to overcome an early speeding penalty as he made his way to the front, and then had to resist a charging Truex to ensure that he took the win at one of Roush's favoured tracks. He was helped in the closing stages, however, when Truex - who took his maiden win in the Cup series two races ago - brushed the wall and dropped back from the #99.
Truex had already recovered from a spin on the backstretch at half-distance, having led for a quarter of the race to that point, and had enough in hand to keep an equally fired-up Tony Stewart at bay. The Home Dept Chevy driver had been restricted to the back of the field at the start following a poor qualifying session, and then clashed with David Gilliland in final practice, but charged through to the front to take third at the flag.
Having dropped to the very back of the field at the green flag, Stewart was 25th by lap 45 and cracked the top ten on lap 83. Then, when some of the frontrunners bunched together on lap 87, he swung the orange Chevrolet to the low line and passed them all to vault into fourth.
![Carl Edwards - Office Depot Ford [pic credit: Ford media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/284637.jpg)
