Edwards primed for fourth win of 2008 campaign in Richmond

Carl Edwards (right) will be reunited Saturday with crew chief Bob Osborne, following his six-week suspension for a rules violation. Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images

You would have thought Carl Edwards was a politician by the way he shook hands, smiled his toothy smile and patted backs while striding down pit road at Talladega last Sunday, 20 minutes before the Aaron's 499.

Edwards didn't kiss any babies or make any speeches, but make no mistake: All eyes were on him before the engines revved.

The fourth-year driver cuts a powerful presence these days in NASCAR, and for good reason. Through 10 races he's clearly the driver to beat for the championship. He's 10th in the points, but in the grand scheme of things, that's as deceiving as Mike Huckabee winning the Iowa primary. Edwards leads the circuit with three wins this season, and he would have had a fourth if not for a blown engine at Atlanta, a race he was leading at the time.

So what's the secret to success for a guy who finished ninth in the standings last year? One word: testing.

Most drivers abhor testing. They're not racing anyone but the stopwatch, there's the headache of the extra travel involved, and there are no fans in the stands to get the adrenaline pumping. The process can be excruciatingly boring. But Edwards is the rare driver who actually enjoys test sessions. He'll take seat time whenever he can get it, and this offseason he told crew chief Bob Osborne to forget about hiring a test driver; Edwards would do the testing himself.

He and Osborne spent more than two months traveling to tracks around the country that don't appear on the NASCAR schedule, trying to find speed in the Car of Tomorrow. Clearly, their diligence has paid off -- especially on the 1.5-mile tracks, where all of Edwards' victories have come. It doesn't hurt Edwards' title chances that five of the 10 races in the Chase will take place at these types of venues.

"The only way to describe what's going on is hard work," Edwards said a few days ago. "Everyone at Roush Fenway was tired of getting beat, so we worked our tails off this offseason. What you're seeing is the result of that. There's nothing else to it."

This weekend at Richmond, crew chief Osborne returns to the track after serving a six-week suspension for a rules violation stemming from the Las Vegas race, which Edwards won. (In post-race inspection, NASCAR officials found that the lid on Edwards' oil tank was missing, which, NASCAR argued, created an aerodynamic advantage; Edwards was docked 100 points.)

Having Osborne back atop the No. 99 pitbox for Saturday's race makes Edwards, in my mind, the favorite to take the checkers. He led 15 laps at Richmond last fall before blowing an engine and he had an extremely fast car earlier this season at Phoenix (he finished fourth), which has similar characteristics to Richmond.

Edwards' primary competition on Saturday will come from two Hendrick Motorsports drivers: Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jimmie Johnson. Little E's last victory came in this race two years ago, and Johnson, who won at Phoenix, is starting to peak.

My pick? Edwards.