NASCAR Cup Series

Carl Edwards recovers from disaster to salvage top-10 finish in Texas

Published Nov. 3, 2014 4:45 p.m. ET

foxsports

For much of Sunday's AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway it appeared as Carl Edwards' hopes of advancing in the Chase were over.

Starting in the 11th spot, Edwards and his Round Fenway Racing teammates had shown speed throughout the weekend's practice and qualifying sessions, but once the green flag dropped on Sunday's race, the trio of Fords struggled mightily.

Dropping well outside the top 20, Edwards fell a lap down for the first time just past the 100-lap mark of the race while running in the 24th spot.

When the second caution of the day flew for debris on Lap 176, Edwards was in the 23rd spot and two laps down to the race leader.

Yet Edwards and his Jimmy Fennig-led crew refused to settle for a poor finish and fought their way through the struggles as the race went on. Thanks to a string of late-race cautions, Edwards was able to get the free pass to get a lap back on the eighth caution of the day on Lap 297.

As the cautions kept stacking up and bringing about more restarts, Edwards methodically worked his way through the field and was 16th on the first attempt at a green-white-checkered finish.

When Jeff Gordon spun to bring out the final caution of the night, Edwards had worked his way up to seventh. On the final green-white-checkered restart, Edwards' No. 99 Ford slipped to ninth when Jimmie Johnson took the checkered flag.

After a dismal start to the day, Edwards and Fennig were able to salvage a top-10 finish and heads to Phoenix International Raceway sixth in the standings, just one point outside of the top four in the Chase standings.

"We got super lucky there at the end and my guys never quit," Edwards after Sunday's race. "I am so proud of my guys. I have no idea where we are at in points but we certainly finished better than we should have tonight. It was a great night when for awhile it didn't look like it was going to be. We get to move on to Phoenix now and we will know what we have to do there. We will take it. My guys didn't quit and I know they won't quit and we are going to go next week and go for this thing."

VIDEO: AAA Texas 500 highlights - NASCAR Victory Lane