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Carl Edwards was unable to do his trademark backflip because of his previously broken foot, so he did a somersault to celebrate his win for the fans at Phoenix International Raceway. (Photo Credit: Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)   via www.nascarmedia.com

There’s no way Carl Edwards can beat Kyle Busch for the 2009 Nationwide Series Championship. But he did alter the celebration plan, when he captured the checkered flag at Phoenix and prevented Busch from clinching the title with one race to go.

Carl Edwards:
We kept him from having that trophy for one more week, there’s something to be said about that but in the end you race for a couple different things. You race for the championship for sure, but you really race for wins and that win feels good no matter what so I’m proud of my guys. Those guys on that 18 team, they’ve done a really good job, everyone. If they don’t seal it next week, which it looks like they are going to, they deserve it, they perform very well.

Edwards would call it a nearly flawless afternoon as he started second and finished first, grabbing his fifth victory of the season.

Edwards:
Great race cars, fast in practice, fast in qualifying, really strong on long runs. Mike Kelly and the guys made great changes throughout the race and got it real fast. There at the beginning Denny was good, Kevin was really good. I thought we might have had the third best car throughout the run and the changes we made were perfect and there at the end the car was really fast. I’m really proud of my guys, that was a lot of fun, I love this racetrack, it’s been very good to be in the Nationwide Series.

Read about Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski after the jump!

It was the third win on the one-mile track for Edwards and his second in the last three Nationwide Series races in the Arizona Desert. The Missouri driver just mentioned Denny as in Denny Hamlin, Kevin as in Kevin Harvick, who would wind up the runner-up. Hamlin, in the mean time, was the only driver other than Edwards to lead the event. Edwards was out front 109 of the 200 laps, Hamlin led the other 91 but he would finish 12th after getting into another run-in with Brad Keselowski and getting spun out. Kyle Busch had a bird’s eye view of his teammate getting turned around.

Kyle Busch:
88 flat out jumped the 20. He tried to get them to turn three and missed so he bottled up and drove into him into the center of the corner. What is wrong with that kid?

Hamlin bowed revenge when he spoke to ESPN pit reporter Dave Burns.

Denny Hamlin:
I could sit here and bash him for the next 20 seconds or so and give you a bunch of sounds bites and everything, but I’m just happy I signed up for next weeks Nationwide race and in turn there’s a lot of guys that owe him. There’s a lot of guys who have a lot of chips that they are going to cash in. I’m just going to be the first to the pay window.

Do you think that NASCAR needs to get involved with Brad now at this point?

Hamlin:
No, I’ll take care of him. It’s no biggie, I got him.

Keselowski had this to say about the incident on MRN.

Brad Keselowski:
We both just got into each other and unfortunately one of us turned around but I don’t want to see cars go around but it’s just part of the way this deal is. We were all racing hard and pushing on each other and sometimes it doesn’t work out.

Keselowski survived the Hamlin skirmish to finish fifth, just behind Reed Sorenson and Clint Bowyer who finished third and forth. Six to 10 it was David Ragan, Matt Kenseth, Mike Bliss, Kyle Busch was ninth and then Steve Wallace. 11 to 15: Jason Keller, again Hamlin was 12th, then it was James Buescher, Trevor Bayne and Scott Wimmer. Busch recorded his 29th top 10 finish in 34 races but came up 6 points short of clenching the championship before heading to Homestead. Busch and crew chief Jason Ratcliff, on the cool down lap.

Jason Ratcliff:
Not one thing went our way today guys, nice job pit crew, way to put this thing back together. Have to go on and do it next week.

Sorry about that man, I have no explanation. I have no idea what happened in this race car but we got it man, it’s ours. All we have to do is take the green next week and we’re going to be the champions. Sorry we couldn’t do it today.

Busch:
We didn’t it today because we didn’t deserve it, oh well.

As was just mentioned, all Busch needs to do now is take the green flag at Homestead, Miami this Saturday and the championship is his. But Carl Edwards is already working on a strategy to prevent even that.

Edwards:
I’ve been trying to work on Jimmy to play a game of Frisbee, maybe I’ll work on Kyle a little bit. I’m not going to say anything because if something happened I’d be incriminating myself.
A full set of the pictures taken at the Phoenix International Raceway can be viewed at http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationwide/sets/72157622691540591/

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