THE CAT IS BACK; Carl Edwards wins for Jack Roush.(Competition)

Byline: AL PEARCE

Jack Roush explained that he never thought NASCAR would dump its Car of Tomorrow program in mid-stream. He admitted he didn't like the concept but said his reluctance to embrace it was not because he doubted the new car actually would come into service. "NASCAR always gets what it wants, doesn't it?'' he pointed out.

Even so, Ford-based Roush Fenway Racing arrived late to the party, without a dedicated COT test team until late last spring, several races after the COT's March debut. By then, almost everyone had tested the new cars at non-Cup tracks for months. "By Bristol, we were thousands of miles behind,'' Roush noted. "It was my fault . . . but if I'd been the first team to test, I'm sure I would have been penalized. Basically, we wasted a year.''

But Roush caught up fast. Witness Carl Edwards' August win at Bristol and the 1-2 Edwards and Matt Kenseth scored at Dover in September.

Three races into 2008, Edwards already has won twice with the "Car of Today'' and leads in points for the first time in his career. He followed his win at California with his first victory at Las Vegas, leading four times for a race-high 86 laps, including the final 30, in the UAW-Dodge 400. A suspect oil cooler discovered in postrace inspection might cost points and money, but the win will stand.

Edwards beat the Hendrick Motorsports Chevy of Dale Earnhardt Jr., the Ford of teammate Greg Biffle and the Chevys of Richard Childress Racing drivers Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton. The race was stopped for 18 minutes after a late incident between Kenseth and Jeff Gordon.

Edwards commanded the race. No one had anything for him-not Gordon, Kenseth, Earnhardt, Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart or the Busch brothers (Kyle, especially, ran well much of the day). Edwards likely would have won by several seconds (rather than a half-second) except for cautions that kept the field bunched.