Carl Edwards won the NASCAR Busch Series Championship Saturday at Texas Motor Speedway, two races before the end of the season.

Edwards, a regular of the NASCAR’s premier Nextel Cup Series, also ran a full-time schedule in the second-tier Busch Series this year, notching four wins over the course of the season.

Photo Courtesy NASCAR 

At one point, Edwards had built a more than 800-point lead in the series. He came into the Texas race 531 points ahead of race pole sitter David Reutimann. Edwards needed to leave Texas with a 390 point lead or a finish of 36^th or better to mathematically clinch the title.

When Saturday’s race was over, Edwards was up 552 points over Reutimann.

Edwards was able to lock up the championship on lap 167 of the 200 lap event due to other drivers falling out of the race. He wound up finishing the race 11^th to last year’s Busch champion Kevin Harvick, who won the O’Reilly Challenge.

Despite the overwhelming lead, the championship was not a foregone conclusion for the No. 60 team. A string of bad luck, including getting caught up in a wreck with reigning Nextel Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson at Lowe’s Motor Speedway two weeks ago, had Edwards and his Roush Fenway Racing team wondering if they could bounce back.

“I think we just had a lot of bad luck, but I’m glad we were able to overcome that and still win this championship,” said Edwards.

Jack Roush, Edwards’ car owner, said racing has a rhythm to it and if a team loses it, it’s hard to get .back in step.

“When that monkey gets on your back, he rides hard; he’s got sharp claws,” said Roush.

This is the 28-year-old’s third year of Busch Series competition.

Photo Courtesy NASCAR 

Edwards will be the last Busch Series champion, as the series will be renamed the Nationwide Series in 2008.

“It is nice to win a Busch Series championship…hopefully we can get one of each,” said Edwards.

Roush has not won the owners’ points championship in the No. 60 car. With two races remaining, Roush trails Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 20 car by 113 points and Richard Childress Racing’s No. 29 by 259. Those cars have been driven by a handful of drivers over the course of the season. Roush said not winning the owners points makes him feel like a “second class owner.”

Roush said the argument could be made that he put specialists of the various types of tracks in the racecar throughout the season; he would win the owners’ points.

“But it isn’t that simple,” he said.

Edwards will race in Sunday’s Nextel Cup Dickies 500. The winner of the inaugural Dickies 500 in 2005, Edwards is currently ranked fourth in the points standings.

But with three races to go, it will be take bad luck on the part of leaders Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson to make up the more than 260-point deficit to win the Nextel Cup championship.

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