Rough riding

BRISTOL, Tenn. – It’s official now. Sprint Cup racing has itself a good old-fashioned rivalry.

All doubt about that ended Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway, with Carl Edwards working past Kyle Busch just after a late-race restart to take away the lead and a victory that for most of the evening looked like it would be another notch in Busch’s 2008 belt.

Edwards gave Busch a bump in Turn 1 on Lap 470, sending the No. 18 Toyota up the track enough to allow Edwards to turn his No. 99 Ford to the low side and take the lead.

“I couldn’t get by him and I couldn’t get by him,” Edwards said. “… I just kind of ran into him. … I just had to ask myself, ‘Would he do that do me?’ And he has before. That’s the way it goes.

“They keep talking about rivalries. We may have one now.

“Let’s make it real clear – I’m not apologizing for it,” Edwards said, citing several instances where he felt like Busch took him out of races to gain positions. “We’re even.”

Busch pulled alongside Edwards on the backstretch after the checkered flag and ran into the side of the No. 99 Ford.

Edwards wasted no time in returning the favor, turning dead right into the rear end of Busch’s Toyota, turning him around on the backstretch.

So, it’s on. Edwards has now won three of the past four races and six this year. Busch has eight wins, and he and Busch have combined to win seven of the past nine races.

“He hit me getting into Turn 1, which got me a little loose,” Busch said in the aftermath. “He’ll probably say he was sorry and he didn’t want to race that way. He always does. Whatever. We’ll race him that way in the Chase if that’s the way he wants to.

“That’s fine. I know that now. … I tried to get him back but I thought better of it. I just didn’t have good enough of a car to do it.”

When asked if he thinks he’s got a rivalry going with Edwards now, Busch had a short answer.

“How many do I need?” he said.

The lap on which the bump came was the first one that anybody other than Busch had led since Lap 55. That’s when Busch swept past Edwards, Jeff Gordon and the about-to-be-lapped Juan Pablo Montoya to grab the top spot with a spectacular move off Turn 2.

Busch led the next 415 laps, in a row. But then came the bump, and Busch had to fight hard to get back past Denny Hamlin to finish second.

The outcome gives Edwards 50 bonus points for the upcoming Chase, 30 fewer than Busch with two races left before the championship playoff begins.

Hamlin’s third-place finish was big for him in the Chase, too. Kevin Harvick finished fourth, Jeff Gordon was fifth and Clint Bowyer was seventh behind Ryan Newman, all of which helped change things in the battle for the 12 Chase spots.

Hamlin came into the race 12th in the standings, but he moved up to 11th. Harvick held eighth and Gordon is still ninth.

Bowyer was 26 points outside the Chase when the evening began, but he survived a near-miss in a big wreck on Lap 216 and moved up to 12th in the standings.

The big victim there was Kasey Kahne, whose No. 9 Dodge was knocked out of the race in that wreck. He fell to 14th in the standings, dropping behind Bowyer and 13th-place David Ragan. Ragan finished 10th Saturday after starting last in a backup Ford. Bowyer is now 12 points ahead of Ragan and 56 ahead of Kahne at the Chase cut line.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jimmie Johnson started deep in the field and things didn’t get any better.

Earnhardt Jr. was penalized for passing before the starting line as the race began, losing a lap as he made a pit road pass-through.

He fought all night trying to get back on the lead lap, but never did and finished 18th.

Johnson went 13 laps down after taking damage when he had a tire go down and got nudged into the wall. He finished 33rd, 18 laps down.