FORT WORTH, Texas — We have seen the trouble created by Carl Edwards' aggressive, gambling nature in the Chase.

It had him bouncing off the wall in Kansas on a last-lap attempt to dive-bomb past Jimmie Johnson. It had him igniting a big wreck at Talladega. It had Edwards and Kevin Harvick getting physical in the Charlotte garage.

On Sunday, he tried a gamble of a different sort. He backed off.

Edwards had the fastest car most of the day and evening at Texas Motor Speedway, but he wasn't going to finish higher than fourth if he didn't attempt to go the final 69 laps without pitting for fuel.

So Edwards stayed out of the pits, took his foot off the gas and coasted past the field to win the Dickies 500. He became the first driver to sweep the two Texas races in one season.

More significantly, the Chase is back on.

With Johnson struggling all day and finishing 15th, Edwards' seventh win of 2008 cut his deficit behind Johnson from 183 points to 106.

If he continues at that pace for the next two weeks, Edwards will gain his first Sprint Cup championship rather than Johnson winning his third in a row.

"I didn't expect to be able to close that many points on Jimmie without him having some sort of catastrophic problem," Edwards said. "So I think that's a good shot in the arm to all the guys who have been working so hard at the shop and here at the track ½ellipsis¾ that we can go out and perform well enough to win this thing."

Well, maybe. Or maybe not.

The Cup drivers go to Phoenix next Sunday where the winner of the last two races has been Johnson. If that happens again, this thing is over.

But at least Edwards made it interesting, although team owner Jack Roush, while delighted, remained confused as to how Edwards was getting so much better mileage than the rest of the Roush Fenway drivers.

"I didn't understand why and I still don't understand why," Roush said. "I questioned the legitimacy of the data I was seeing. 1/8But3/8 we've seen situations where if the driver is willing to not go as fast as he might, stop using the brakes and has track position to give up, you can save several laps on a tank of gas, and they were able to do that."

Edwards said he had to have his crew chief Bob Osborne basically shout at him to slow down because it goes so much against a driver's nature, especially at the end of the race.

Edwards' nature is to do what he did at Kansas, keep his foot on the throttle in the final turn, knowing it would end up putting his car into the wall and hoping to bounce off it strong enough to finish ahead of Johnson.

That strategy didn't work. Sunday's strategy did.

"Kansas was way more fun," Edwards said. "That was leaving your foot on the throttle, and this one was taking it off. But a win is a win."

With two weeks to go, Edwards finds himself second behind Clint

Bowyer in the Nationwide series and second to Johnson in the Cup series. He gained on both drivers at Texas Motor Speedway, but it may be a case — especially in Sprint Cup — of too much too late.

As much as Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus struggled Sunday, unable to finish on the lead lap, they still brought the car home 15th. Their consistency is such that that is their worst finish in the Chase by six spots.

They don't spend much time out of the top five and hardly any out of the top 10. And, as they have shown, they know how to run the mile oval at Phoenix and win.

Suddenly, the Chase is on, although Johnson maintained that is nothing new.

"Man, there's been a race the whole time," he said. "There are still 400 miles at Homestead and 300 at Phoenix. A lot can happen. Even at 183 points over Carl, I wasn't comfortable."

Johnson's comfort zone and lead shrunk considerably Sunday. There's too much ground to make up to say that Edwards should be optimistic.

But with Sunday's victory, the hope that Edwards expressed here Friday that had most of us doubting its authenticity became very real.