Edwards leads final practice at Talladega

If Friday's final practice is any indication, Carl Edwards should have a pretty good seat up near the front on Sunday. He ran the fastest lap of the session — 194.904 mph — as most teams opted to work on qualification setups in the second of two practices. After Saturday's qualifying, the cars will be impounded until race day.

Carl Edwards promises he'll try not to make the same mistake twice.

In the last visit to Talladega Superspeedway last fall, Edwards stayed well behind the main pack of cars in an effort to stay out of trouble. But with less than 15 laps to go, Edwards wound up smack dab in the middle of a multi-car accident ignited when he bumped teammate Greg Biffle from behind, sending him out of control at the front of the pack.

“I don't know how I'm gonna run it. If we're running up front, I'll probably run real hard and try to stay up there. If you start falling back, it's just tough to sit there and run in the middle of 30 cars and think that that's safe to do."

"I don't know how I'm gonna run it," he admitted. "If we're running up front, I'll probably run real hard and try to stay up there. If you start falling back, it's just tough to sit there and run in the middle of 30 cars and think that that's safe to do.

"It just kind of depends on what everybody does. You can't lose the pack, but if there are four or five guys back there running, you can go back there and kind of catch your breath a little bit and make a run for the front later."

Top-10 Speeds

Pos. Driver Make Speed Time
1. Carl Edwards Ford 194.904 49.132
2. David Gilliland Chevrolet 194.820 49.153
3. Tony Stewart Chevrolet 194.618 49.204
4. Joey Logano Toyota 194.591 49.211
5. Ryan Newman Chevrolet 194.559 49.219
6. Kyle Busch Toyota 194.433 49.251
7. Paul Menard Ford 194.350 49.272
8. David Ragan Ford 194.109 49.333
9. Michael Waltrip Toyota 194.098 49.336
10. Denny Hamlin Toyota 193.992 49.363