Fresh from setting second fastest time in Friday's Coors Pole qualifying session at the Texas Motor Speedway Carl Edwards underlined his intermediate-track prowess with the fastest lap in Saturday morning's opening Sprint Cup practice session.
Edwards led last November's Dickies 500 winner Jimmie Johnson and the 41 other starting drivers with a best time of 28.784-seconds (187.604mph) around the 1.5-mile Texas oval in preparation for Sunday's Samsung 500.
Kyle Busch, the only other drver bar Edwards to have won on an intermediate 1.5 or 2 mile oval thus far in 2008, was third fastest with Greg Biffle and Tony Stewart rounding out the top five.
The Roush-Fenway/Hendrick/Gibbs theme at the head of the timesheets continued with Denny Hamlin, David Ragan and Matt Kenseth filling out positions six through eight with only the DEI Chevrolet of Martin Truex Jr and the Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet of Kevin Harvick breaking the trend in ninth and tenth places respectively.
Defending Samsung 500 winner and current Sprint Cup points leader Jeff Burton was eleventh fastest with polesitter Dale Earnhardt Jr 13th and Jeff Gordon still struggling to get on the pace in 23rd.
Further down the timesheets rookie Michael McDowell made a tentative return to the cockpit less than a day after totalling his primary #00 Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota in qualifying. McDowell was 42nd fastest in his back-up car, albeit 1.6-seconds slower than Edwards.
![Carl Edwards, Roush-Fenway Ford [Pic Credit Ford Media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/405819.jpg)
