Edwards may be on the verge of superstardom

Carl Edwards looks to make the jump this season from proven race winner and Chase participant to legitimate NASCAR star. Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR

Is Carl Edwards on the verge of achieving superstar status, ready to take on Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Matt Kenseth and Dale Earnhardt Jr. as a bona fide contender to win the Sprint Cup?

Jack Roush thinks that is exactly where Edwards stands. And Edwards probably made some more believers Monday with his victory in the Auto Club 500.

Edwards outgunned Johnson and Gordon in a high-speed shootout, driving past the Hendrick Motorsport teammates in a 26-lap, flat-out dash to the checkered flag on the two-mile Auto Club Speedway in southern California.

"Carl is approaching the top of his game," Roush said. "I hope we'll be able to keep him there for a long time."

Edwards has driven for Roush Fenway Racing his entire Cup career and is hardly a newcomer to Victory Lane. He had four wins during an impressive first full season in 2005, finishing third in the championship, and had three more wins on his way to placing ninth in the Chase last season.

But Edwards slumped to a no-win, no-Chase season in 2006 that can be attributed to the absence of crew chief Bob Osborne for most of the year. Six races into the season, Roush moved Osborne to Jamie McMurray's No. 26 and elevated engineer Wally Brown to crew chief on Edwards' No. 99. McMurray and Osborne didn't click and Edwards slid out of the hunt for the Chase. Roush reunited Osborne and Edwards in the fall and Edwards rebounded strongly in 2007.

Edwards has clearly established a reputation as an outstanding driver, a proven Chaser and race winner when partnered with Osborne. The question is: Can Edwards take the next step to greatness? How can he get better?

"That's a loaded question," Roush said. "When you look at what Matt Kenseth does in terms of the way he recovers from adversity, you look at the way Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon overcome or recover from adversity, that takes experience, it takes maturity. It takes time for a driver to really have experienced all the things that go wrong, and decide how he's going to deal with all the excruciating frustration that goes with the disparity between his expectations and his goals.

"Carl has had enough frustration. He's certainly been focused on it, been applying himself in it. But I hope that he's had enough things go wrong that he's now got in his mindset what all his various strategies will be, and that he will not have missteps that he'll regret. I think we're at that point, but we'll see."

Edwards demonstrated this mental fortitude Monday, dealing with a pit stop that dropped his car from the lead to fourth with 26 laps to go -- before rallying to his eighth win in 123 Cup starts.

His Dish Network Ford had led Johnson by five seconds when the caution came out and the leaders pitted. Johnson, Gordon and McMurray got out of the pits in front of him.

McMurray's Ford had taken only right-side tires. Edwards blasted past him on the outside on the start. Like Edwards, Johnson and Gordon had taken four tires and they had streaked ahead at the green flag.

Running the middle-to-high groove, Edwards ran Gordon's Chevrolet down in eight laps and passed him on the outside exiting Turn 4.

Johnson's Chevrolet was one second in front and Edwards began closing. Johnson moved up to the same groove Edwards was running, hoping that the Ford wasn't working down low.

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