MONEY CALL; CARL EDWARDS WINS POCONO AFTER A PIT-STOP GAMBLE.

Byline: AL PEARCE

Carl Edwards and crew chief Bob Osborne sat atop their pit box, waiting out a heavy rainstorm just past the halfway point of the Sunoco Red Cross 500 at Pocono Raceway. They were growing publicly cantankerous, each accusing the other of making what might have been a bad pit call.

Two hours later, they made up like a pair of loving old fogies. That's what comes with winning a NASCAR 500-miler.

Along with 17 other teams, Edwards and Osborne gambled that the shower would pass. They felt the race would run its full 200-lap, 500-mile distance, nearby thunderheads notwithstanding. But as the rain increased, each second-guessed the other for saying "pit'' when they were in third and didn't need tires or gas.

"Bob did a great job,'' Edwards said later. "I wasn't so sure about halfway through when we were yelling at each other, but he did an unbelievable job. We have this strange relationship. We'll go at each other, settle on something and walk away, then go back at each other again. I was getting on him, and he was getting on me about who made the call to pit. That's just the way we are.''

"It was a little stressful,'' Osborne said. "The rain came, and we weren't sure what we wanted to do. We talked about the rain clearing and getting the track dried, [and we pitted so we wouldn't have to under green when the race restarted]. Then it started raining harder, and Carl's on the pit box with me, and we're arguing about why we ...