“I had become okay with the fact that we were probably gonna finish 20th or 25th,” Edwards said. “I was thinking already about [next weekend’s race at] Texas and how we were gonna have to go there and everything we were gonna do. But my guys stuck with it and we got very, very fortunate. I’m just glad we can move on.”

But not without some new company.

Stewart has been left for dead several times this season. First, when he didn’t win a race during the regular season and characterized his spot in the Chase as nothing more than taking up room, then when he seemingly spoiled his hot start to the Chase (when he won the first two races) by going 25th-15th in the next two races to drop all the way to seventh in the standings.

It didn’t look like he’d make up any ground Sunday, especially with under 100 laps to go when he gave up the lead with an apparent flat tire. It wasn’t flat, but still Stewart went to pit road, dropping him all the way back to 23rd.

Over the next 80 laps he drove his way back toward the front and found himself in second with less than 10 to go. That’ where he would finish, or so it seemed because no one was catching Johnson. Then Brian Vickers decided to exact some revenge on Kenseth for an earlier incident. That brought out a caution with eight laps to go and, more importantly for Stewart, erased his deficit behind Johnson.

“You can thank Vickers for that, being a jackass,” Johnson’s crew chief Chad Knaus lamented over the team radio.

On the ensuing restart, Stewart started on the outside of Johnson. The two raced side-by-side during the first of a three-lap shootout, with Stewart nosing ahead of Johnson and eventually into the lead.

“When I was inside of Tony, I went down in the corner and thought that eight tires would be a lot better than four,” Johnson said, indicating that he thought about barreling through the corner and using Stewart’s car as a retaining wall. “I changed my mind. With where he is in the points, what’s going on, the fact we raced throughout the day today, he never touched me, I had a hard time doing that.”

Now it’s on to Texas, where Edwards finished third and Stewart 12th earlier this season. And though the Chase is more than just a two-man race – Kevin Harvick (4th on Sunday) is just 21 points back, Brad Keselowski 27 – Stewart is only focused on the man in front of him.

“It’s no disrespect to [Edwards],” Stewart said. “He’s a great competitor, he’s a great guy, he’s with a great organization that deserves their shot at that championship, too. We’ve had one of those up and down years and we’re having a run in this Chase now where we’re hungry. We’re hungry for this. I feel like our mindset into these next three weeks, we’ve been nice all year to a lot of guys, given guys a lot of breaks. We’re cashing tickets in these next three weeks.”